Lord Warner: My Lords, I agree with the right reverend Prelate that social cohesion is important in handling a pandemic, and I am sure that the clergy will assist in that area. As I said, no final decisions have been taken on designating employment groups as priority for vaccination. We will consider carefully the points which he makes with the Faith Communities Consultative Council.

Lord Warner: My Lords, we are currently purchasing a sufficient quantity of Tamiflu antiviral to treat 25 per cent of the population falling ill with pandemic influenza, which is what the current plans are based on. That equates to the equivalent of 14.6 million courses. The last of those courses will arrive in August and September. We keep the prophylaxis issue under review. We are studying a paper by Professor Neil Ferguson, who has expressed views on the issue.

Lord Davies of Coity: My Lords, does my noble friend feel there is a danger of a member of a public reading this Question and mistakenly believing that ministers of religion are to be involved to administer the last rites?

Lord Warner: My Lords, I think that this is a man with no access to higher authority to be able answer that question.

Lord Warner: My Lords, there are two points there. As I understand it, the latest published figures show that 99 per cent of mental health trusts and PCTs that provide mental health services meet single-sex accommodation objectives. We are working closely with the remaining one per cent to ensure that they achieve the necessary standards as quickly as possible.
	The delay in responding to the report has been caused by trying to get to the bottom of the allegations. That is what Professor Louis Appleby has been doing and will continue to do.

Baroness Murphy: My Lords, I accept that the departmental returns suggest that 99 per cent of trusts now have single-sex wards, but in reality does the Minister not accept that at least 25 per cent have makeshift arrangements because they do not have the capital investment to allow them to arrange for separate wards? Those unfortunate arrangements allow daytime occupancy to be joint and rooms at night to be unlocked, often in separate wards but too close to each other to provide appropriate protection.

Lord Warner: My Lords, I will write to the noble Baroness with the definitions of standards. I think she is aware of them. I do not have time to go through the detail of them here, but I will share them with her.
	As I said, there are occasions when people are admitted to a mixed-sex ward in an emergency. A small proportion of providers—one per cent—are not meeting the standards, and we are working with them to make sure that they do so.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, somewhat exceptionally, I seek to repeat a Statement made by the right honourable Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in the other place yesterday. The Statement is as follows:
	"Today I am publishing a report setting out the conclusions of the review. Copies will available in the Vote Office in the usual way. The report is extensive and of necessity my Statement has to cover proposals in some detail."Mr Speaker, we face two major long-term challenges: first, along with other countries, to tackle climate change and the need to cut damaging carbon emissions; and, secondly, delivering secure supplies of cleaner energy at affordable prices. Increasingly, we will come to depend upon imported gas and oil as our own plentiful but harder to exploit North Sea reserves decline. The proposals I am announcing today set out our approach to meeting our energy needs over the next 30 to 40 years. Many of the proposals contained in this report will need further consultation. Thereafter, the Government intend to publish a White Paper around the turn of the year."The starting point for reducing carbon emissions must be to save energy. If we are to meet our goals of a 60 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emission by 2050, we need not just to reduce carbon intensity through low energy sources such as renewables, but also to save energy. So we make a number of proposals to encourage greater energy efficiency. For consumers we need better information about the amount of energy used, smart metering and real-time energy use displays, better and clearer energy bills and more information for new buyers and tenants on energy efficiency in homes."It is estimated that leaving electric appliances on standby uses about 7 per cent of all electricity generated in the UK. So we will work with industry and others to improve the efficiency of domestic appliances and to phase out inefficient goods, limiting the amount of stand-by energy wasted."We also propose a range of measures to take us towards a long-term goal of carbon neutral developments—new homes can use around a quarter of the energy to heat compared with the average home. We aim to make the Government estate carbon neutral by 2012. We will also provide strong support for the use of on-site electricity generation such as solar panels."Energy efficiency will help people on low incomes especially. The review sets out our approach. If we are to make a real difference to reducing energy demand we need a radically different approach. We need a stronger obligation on energy companies to provide energy saving measures and a radical plan to change the way they sell their services. "We will encourage Britain's 27 million homes to become more energy efficient, but it is also essential that we incentivise Britain's big six energy suppliers to work with home owners to make their houses more energy efficient."Today, companies have the incentive to sell as much as they can. Instead, we need to give energy producers incentives to make households more energy efficient and to sell them more insulation products. We are consulting on the most effective way of doing that. "The EU Emissions Trading Scheme, which covers 11,000 high intensity users of energy and the climate change levy are key to encouraging businesses such as power stations or steelworks to save energy and to cut emissions. But there are around 5,000 large businesses and public services in the UK not covered by that scheme. We want to reduce energy inefficiency for these companies too. One supermarket chain in the UK alone is one of the biggest single users of energy in the country. These businesses should be incentivised to reduce their emissions. "So we shall consult on a proposal for an emissions trading scheme for them along with other options to cut the amount of carbon produced, which is something that they support. It makes economic and environmental sense. "Saving energy in businesses and homes is essential. But so too is the need to cut emissions from road transport. Fuel efficiency in transport continues to improve, and we will encourage the use of lower carbon fuels, especially biofuels. There will be more cost-effective opportunities to save carbon as new technologies are developed. Company car tax and vehicle excise duty have been reformed to encourage energy efficiency, and we will continue to press the EU to consider the inclusion of road transport in the emissions trading scheme as well as including aviation. "Last November, we announced in the renewable transport fuel obligation that 5 per cent of all fuels are to be from renewable sources by 2010. Today, we propose that the obligation, after consultation, should be extended after 2010, provided that some important conditions are met. This could provide a further carbon reduction of 2 million tonnes, which is equivalent to taking another 1 million cars off the road once it is fully implemented. "Providing the right incentives to reduce energy is critical, but we also need to do more to make the energy we use cleaner. We make a number of proposals. Most of our electricity is generated in large power stations, and around three-quarters of our heat comes from gas that is fed through a national network. It delivers economies of scale, safety and, crucially, reliability. The Government believe that we can do more to encourage the generation of electricity on a smaller scale near to where it is used."Today, less than half of 1 per cent of our electricity comes from microgeneration. Combined heat and power provides about 7 per cent. We need to do more. There are technical and other obstacles to overcome, but we want to remove barriers to the development of what is known as distributed generation. We can do more to make it more attractive to energy microgeneration and to set up combined heat and power schemes. The Government believe that this is a major opportunity for the UK not just to invest in renewable energy but in other low carbon technologies. "The environmental transformation fund, which was announced recently, will provide investment for energy funding services. Details of the scale and scope of that fund will be announced in the spending review in 2008. We will also encourage low carbon alternatives such as biomass, solar and heat pumps. "Over the next two decades, it is likely that we will need substantial new electricity generation capacity as power stations, principally coal and nuclear plants, reach the end of their lives. It is equivalent to around a third of today's generation capacity. Power stations are long-term investments, and we need to put in place the right framework to incentivise investment decisions to limit carbon emissions. "First, we remain committed to carbon pricing in the UK through the operation of the emissions trading scheme. It is essential that there is a carbon price, to encourage us to use less of it. Today, around 90 per cent of the UK's energy needs are met by fossil fuels, so we need to do more to encourage renewable generation of electricity. "The renewables obligation is key to supporting the expansion of renewables. It has brought forward major developments, particularly onshore wind, landfill gas and the use of biomass in coal stations. Far from getting rid of the renewables obligation as some have proposed, we intend to increase it from 15 per cent to 20 per cent."We also want to give a boost to offshore wind and other emerging technologies to encourage the growth of other technologies—off-shore, wind or tidal, for example. So we will consult on banding the obligations to encourage these developments."The Government also see a continuing role for both gas and coal-fired generation. The Government will convene a coal forum to bring together UK coal producers and suppliers to help them find solutions for the long-term future of UK coal-fired power generation and UK coal production."Coal-fired generation continues to meet around one third of electricity demand. Last winter it reached as much as half. This shows the importance coal can play to the UK's energy security. But to have a long-term future we need to tackle its heavy carbon emissions."Carbon capture and storage could cut emissions by 80 to 90 per cent. And we have some natural and commercial advantages—strong oil industry and old oil fields where CO2 can be stored. The next step would be a commercial demonstration if it proved to be cost effective. We are working with Norway and the industry in developing this and a further announcement will be made in the Pre-Budget Report. Carbon capture could lead to saving several millions tonnes of carbon by 2020."The Government believe that a mix of energy supply remains essential. We should not be over-dependent on one source. That is especially so if we are to maintain security of supply in the future. We will continue to do everything we can to promote more open and competitive markets, which is why we are backing the Commission in securing an effective implementation of the energy market."We will also take steps to secure gas supplies, maximising the exploitation of oil and gas from the UK Continental Shelf. Last month we saw a record number of applications for further development in the North Sea. We also need to facilitate the construction of sufficient storage and import infrastructure."Against a background where Britain's nuclear power stations are ageing, decisions will have to be taken on their replacement in the next few years. If we do nothing, the proportion of electricity generated by nuclear will fall from just under 20 per cent today to just 6 per cent in 15 years' time. And nuclear has provided much of the electricity base load, contributing to consistency of supply as well as security of supply."While some of that capacity can and should be replaced by renewables, it is more likely than not that some of it will be replaced by gas, which would increasingly have to be imported. The Government have concluded that new nuclear power stations could make a significant contribution to meeting our energy policy goals. It will be for the private sector to initiate, fund, construct and operate new nuclear plants and cover the cost of decommissioning and their full share of long-term waste management costs."The review makes a number of proposals to address potential barriers to new build and the HSE is developing guidance for potential providers of new stations. For nuclear, new-build consideration of safety and security will be paramount, as it is now. We are setting out a proposed framework for the way in which the relevant issues on nuclear should be handled in the planning process and will be consulting on this before the publication of the White Paper."The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management published its interim recommendations in April, confirming its preference for geological disposal of nuclear waste. The committee is to be congratulated on the open and transparent way in which it has conducted its work and the broad consensus it has developed for securing the future long-term management of the UK's nuclear waste. CoRWM will publish its final report this month. The Government will respond thereafter. "If we are to see any of these developments, whether they be renewables or conventional power stations, we need to change the planning laws in this country. We will work with the devolved administrations to make sure that we have an effective planning regime. There are some changes we can make now, for example, bringing together the planning process and consents on the Electricity Act but the Government believe that the current planning regime needs fundamental reform and the Government will consult on proposals to do that later this year. "The proposals that I have set out will result in a reduction of between 19 and 25 million tonnes of carbon by 2020, over and above the measures announced in the Climate Change Programme review already. We are on course to achieve real progress in cutting emissions by 2020 and on the right path to attaining our goal of cutting the UK's carbon emissions by 60 per cent by about 2050. These proposals will help us meet our twin objectives of tackling climate change and providing security of supply. The scale of the challenge is great. The proposals I set out show how we can overcome them to secure our prosperity and the health of our planet".
	My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
	Since this Statement was made in the other place, it has come to light that the statistics quoted on electricity appliances on standby should have referred to electricity used in the home, not electricity generated in the United Kingdom. Arrangements are being made to advise the other place of that clarification.

Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made yesterday in the other place. I am pleased that Her Majesty's Government are, in theory, considering nuclear energy within the mix that we need to protect the security of supply to our small country, especially considering that we on these Benches had to fight the Government during the progress of the Energy Bill in 2004 to keep the nuclear option open. Indeed, one might argue that, welcome though some of the noises in the Statement are, the gist is more, "We've thought about it, now we are going to think about it again—a little more—and then consult on it", or, as my honourable friend in the other place stated yesterday,
	"not carbon-free but content-free".—[Official Report, Commons, 11/7/06; col. 1265.]
	Two years ago the Government had the opportunity in primary legislation to address many of the points that they have raised today. Yet I am sure that noble Lords from all sides of the House will remember that the Government resisted amendments that addressed sustainable energy, microgeneration, combined heat and power, energy efficiency and clean-coal technology, to mention just a few—perhaps because it was an election year. As the energy crisis deepens, we know that the Energy Act 2004 was a missed opportunity and that, with the rapid rise in the price of oil and the depleting gas supplies, the matter is now becoming critical. There can be no doubt that the Government agree with us that security of supply and carbon reduction are the two key priorities.
	I will not repeat the comments of my honourable friend, who succinctly laid down the many areas in which there is now a consensus, nor shall I ask the questions that he did, unless there was no answer in the other place. However, I want to ask the Minister what consideration has been given to the flexing of muscles by Russia in the energy field and how that may affect our security of supply at the end of the pipeline.
	I started by suggesting that, in theory, the Government seem to be considering nuclear energy. In a well publicised speech, the Prime Minister announced that nuclear power is
	"back on the agenda with a vengeance".
	However, in his preface to the energy review report, the Prime Minister spares 10 scant words to the subject of nuclear power. In his Statement in the other place yesterday, repeated by the Minister today, the Secretary of State said that the Government have concluded that new nuclear power stations could make a significant contribution to meeting our energy policy needs. I emphasise the word "could"—not "will" or even "should". Is this a diminution of what the Prime Minister said about nuclear power being,
	"back on the agenda with a vengeance"?
	It is perfectly clear that, perhaps in deference to their vast body of anti-nuclear supporters, the Government, while offering to grasp the nuclear nettle, have done so with heavily gloved hands.
	In the very next paragraph of that Statement, the Government said—I précis it—that it will be for the private sector to fund its full share of the long-term waste management costs. The Secretary of State was pressed by several of his Back Benchers in the other place to explain what the full share was. One honourable Member asked him whether it was 100 per cent. To all those questions, no answers were forthcoming, so, on behalf of the House and in the interests of clarity, I repeat the question: is the full share 100 per cent? A simple yes or no will suffice. I assume that nuclear waste from sources other than nuclear power—for example, medical and industrial waste, and isotopes—will not be charged to the generators.
	I am conscious of time in a discussion in which many may want to take part, so I shall add only one more comment. In the Statement, the Minister repeated that we need a stronger obligation on energy companies to provide energy-saving measures. The Secretary of State pointed out that energy companies have a great incentive to sell as much energy as they can. The suggestion is that energy companies should be incentivised to sell more insulating products. It sounds to me like trying to get turkeys to vote for Christmas.
	The Prime Minister has referred to energy-saving bulbs. They are first class: they save power and last much longer than ordinary bulbs. But they cost several pounds each, and we obviously need to look for things that are not necessarily beyond the pocket of many people. What energy efficiency regulations will be imposed both on new builds and on conversions of existing properties?
	Overall, the Statement poses more questions than it gives answers, because it lacks detail and calls for further consultation. How much more do we need? We welcome the Government's focus on renewables, particularly for planning procedures. However, what else will they do to achieve those targets? I remind the Minister that the Government have had targets of 10 per cent by 2010, 20 per cent by 2020 and 60 per cent by 2050. Today, 3 to 4 per cent of our energy comes from wind power, so the question is: how they will achieve that? After nine years, six Secretaries of State and three energy reviews, our supply is not secure and carbon emissions continue to rise.
	I started by saying that the Energy Act 2004 was a missed opportunity. This Statement has been, as well. It is, as my honourable friend said in the other place,
	"a grave and perilous let-down".—[Official Report, Commons, 11/7/06, col. 1266.]
	I return to the cry so often heard. It is time, in the immortal words of Elvis, for:
	"A little less conversation, a little more action, please".

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the organisation of government is the preserve of the Prime Minister, but no doubt he will read with the closest attention the suggestion of the noble Lord that there should be a separate department of energy. Perhaps I may also say that hindsight is a wonderful thing. We lived in a rather different environment in the 1980s. It also true that it is a joy to stand at this Dispatch Box and say that my party had no responsibility for policy during the 1980s, as he may have noticed. If he is being critical, he can leave this Government and my party out of that criticism.
	On the more general points that the noble Lord made regarding costs, in a changing situation the evaluation of costs is very difficult. However, nuclear is currently cheaper than wind generation, but it is more expensive than gas and coal; that is the position it occupies. We intend to create the circumstances in which a full evaluation of what can be contributed to the production of energy over the next 20 to 30 years, and that will include careful consideration of costs by potential producers. The nuclear industry will make up its own mind on those issues.

Baroness Walmsley: I rise to speak to Amendments Nos. 24, 26 and 26A standing in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Sharp. Amendment No. 24 would do something similar to Amendment No. 23 moved by the noble Lord, Lord Judd. It would require the local authority to be the educator of last resort. In other words, the LEA has to find a place for a child who fails to secure a place at a secondary school and an alternative school, home tuition or a PRU for pupils who are excluded, for whatever reason.
	It is one thing identifying the children not receiving a suitable education, as this Bill seeks to do, but someone has to have the duty to provide that education. In the current climate of schools becoming independent and having the right to refuse admission to particular children, there is no mechanism to rectify that situation. I am not normally someone who wants local authorities to have a duty to pick up the pieces of other people's messes, but someone must, in the last resort, have the duty to provide a child with an education—the education to which it has a right. That will have to be the local authority.
	Amendments Nos. 26 and 26A have already had the implicit support of the noble Lord, Lord Judd, in what he said in his excellent speech. Amendment No. 26 would end the current exclusion of children detained under an order of court from the statutory right to education. It is currently the case that Section 562 of the Education Act 1996 effectively permits the Secretary of State, local authorities and parents to opt out of any obligations under the Act if the child is detained by the order of a court. Although the local authority may make arrangements for educational provision for such a child, it is under no obligation to do so.
	The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child stated in its concluding observations on the UK's second report to the committee in 2002 that it was particularly,
	"concerned that children deprived of their liberty in prisons and juvenile detention centres do not have a statutory right to education and that their education is not under the responsibility of the Departments responsible for education and that they do not enjoy support for special education needs".
	Further, in its report on the UNCRC in 2000-03, the Joint Committee on Human Rights concurred. It said:
	"We do not find the arguments presented by the Minister for Children and Young People against giving detained juveniles the same rights to education as other children persuasive—indeed we find them puzzlingly contradictory. He argues that such guarantees are unnecessary because the Government is doing all that is required. The same sorts of arguments were made against the application of the Children Act and the consequence was a judicial finding against the Government. We consider that the persistence of the Government's resistance to placing the educational rights of young offenders on a statutory footing is a contravention of the UK's international obligations".
	The JCHR scrutiny report on the current Bill also highlights as concerning the fact that as a result of Section 562, Clause 4, which puts local authorities under a new duty to identify children not receiving education, will not apply to children in custody. The report says:
	"These will be some of the most vulnerable children in the LEA's area and in our view it would be preferable if the duty to make arrangements to identify children not receiving education applied to them".
	Without relevant statutory duties in place, the current situation for young people in custody with regard to education is currently very poor. Many of them start with very poor levels of education, and that is widely considered one of the causes of crime. Prison Service Order 4950 stipulates the requirements for prisons holding children. Education should be provided for at least 15 hours a week and the remaining 15 hours must be spent in accredited educative activities, which may include work-based learning. However, there is evidence, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said, that these levels of provision are not being consistently met. In April, in response to a Parliamentary Question, Fiona Mactaggart said:
	"The Youth Justice Board ... set the young people's secure estate a national average of 25 hours a week education and training provision, rising to 30 when resources become available. Between April 2005 and March 2006, eight young offender institutions ... met the national average and eight did not.
	In the 2005—08 service level agreement between the YJB and the Prison Service, each YOI was set an agreed target for the provision of education and training. Between April 2005 and March 2006, five YOIs met their individual target and 11 did not".—[Official Report, Commons, 27/4/06; col. 1262-3W.]
	Less than 50 per cent reaching their targets is pretty appalling, especially when we know that improving levels of education and training to help a young person get a job is one of the most effective levers to help them to avoid reoffending and to keep out of the downward spiral that is too often the result of getting involved with the criminal justice system. Furthermore, a recent inspection report of Her Majesty's young offender institution, Wetherby, published in January 2005, found that four out of 10 of the young people were not accessing education or training.
	The Government in their recent Green Paper, Reducing Re-offending Through Skills and Employment, recognise these serious deficiencies in the current arrangements. In the light of the Government's own plans, the Government stated during the Committee stage of the Bill in the House of Commons that they do not feel that the repeal of Section 562 is either necessary or desirable. I find that very puzzling. I believe that by failing to end this discriminatory exemption the efforts to improve the situation will be undermined. As long as that section remains in place, it will continue to be a major barrier to the effective provision of education for children in custody.
	Amendment No. 26A probes whether the duties placed on local authorities under the Education Act 1996 apply to children in immigration removal centres. Under that Act, children subject to an order of court are currently exempt, but the situation relating to children in immigration removal centres is not clear. Children in those centres are not placed there by order of court. However, there are clear differentials in standards between education provision in mainstream schools and in immigration removal centres, which calls the status of their education provision into serious question.
	The following quotation was taken from a recent inspection of Yarl's Wood immigration removal centre last March. It said that the provision for children's education was unsatisfactory and depressing and that:
	"Accommodation for older children was poor, and the broad range of ages and abilities prevented effective work. There was an over-reliance on agency staff, insufficient resources and no system to measure the quality, rather than the amount, of teaching".
	When this issue was debated in Committee in another place, the Minister, Phil Hope MP, said that due to the very low numbers of children detained in IRCs it would be disproportionate to extend local authorities' education duties to include them, and a more appropriate way to tackle the current deficiencies in the system was through the contract to run the centre. He said:
	"Of the three immigration removal centres that hold families with children, two hold families for a maximum of 72 hours",
	while at Yarl's Wood,
	"in individual cases, families with children are held there for longer periods. Most will be held for just a few days prior to removal from the UK".—[Official Report, Commons Standing Committee E, 18/4/06; col. 258.]
	If the scale of the problem is so small, it would be a very small burden on local authorities.
	Besides, we refute the contention that the scale of the issue is quite that small. Government figures show that of the 540 minors recorded as leaving detention, excluding Oakington, during the fourth quarter of last year, 465 were asylum detainees, a rise of 19 per cent from the third quarter of that same year. Three hundred and eighty-five of all minors had been in detention for seven days or less, 60 of them eight to 14 days and 70 had been detained for something between 15 and 29 days. That is a considerable period of time during the education of a child. A recent report from Save the Children estimates that the numbers are much greater than those quoted by the Government. I will not detain your Lordships by quoting it, but the report is easily available.
	The fundamental objection to the current situation is that segregated education provision is regressive and discriminatory. One of the founding principles of the Education Act 1944 was that school-based education should be universally available. Allowing a child's immigration status to determine whether or not they can attend a mainstream school is a dangerous and unprecedented attack on that principle and may violate the right of the child to be educated under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The Earl of Listowel: I support Amendments Nos. 24 and 26. I apologise to the Committee if I have to slip out in the course of the Minister's response, as it is the annual general meeting of the Associate Parliamentary Group for Children and Young People in Care, and my presence is necessary to make that quorate.
	Clause 4, identifying those children who are not receiving education, is very welcome. It seems to me, however, as it does to the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, only to go halfway to meeting the need. I shall give the case of Traveller children as an example. Recently a charity, the Ormiston Children and Families Trust, made a presentation on the needs of children of Traveller families. Three such children spoke of their experience of bullying in schools, of their need to hide their identities as Travellers in schools and, one occasion, of having a brick thrown through their family home. They also spoke with pride about the occasions when they were encouraged at school to go and speak to their fellow pupils about their cultural heritage, and the impact that had on reducing the bullying towards them.
	Nearly 40 years ago the Plowden report identified the concerns about Traveller children not taking part in education, and a report from Ofsted, The Education of Traveller Children, indicated that possibly 10,000 Traveller children were not receiving secondary school education. I know that the Government are taking several important steps in addressing this problem. The development of early years childcare, which can help to draw these families into the education system and build their trust in it, is particularly welcome. Will the Minister say—perhaps he can write to me—what progress has been made on that figure of 10,000 children?
	I have no wish to burden schools any further than they already are. I welcome the prioritisation of looked-after children in the admissions for schools. We recognise that these children have been let down badly in the past. I welcome what the Government have done, but I hope that they will consider what more could be done for these other children who have been excluded.
	I turn to Amendment No. 26. I believe that 28 per cent of juveniles leaving the prison estate reoffend within two months of doing so. On a recent visit to a secure training centre, the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland of Asthal, and I spoke to a 16 year-old young man, Paul. He told us that he had not been in school for several years and that he did not feel that he had much time for it. In the course of his sentence he made several years' progress in reading ability. The education at that establishment was clearly first rate, although the Committee will be aware that the quality of provision in secure training centres and young offender institutions is variable. What really came through very clearly from all the people we spoke to on that visit, including the wonderful teachers, the social workers and the psychologists, is that when those children leave that setting, it is as if they come off a cliff. That is a recurrent theme. It is particularly true of young people in care who, sadly, too often enter custody. When they leave custody, there is no connection with services to ensure that they are properly cared for. I hope that the amendment will enable a more thorough approach to connect these children with the services they need when they move on. I hope that the noble Lord will consider that.
	Will the noble Lord also consider holding a meeting on this and other matters with the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland? If the noble Baroness is to achieve her goal of reducing reoffending, which is very much a priority of hers, clearly the noble Lord's department and that of the noble Baroness will have to work together much more closely. If I may say so, the closer the Home Office and the noble Lord's department work together, the better will his responsibility for vulnerable children be discharged. However, I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, carries a very heavy burden and I do not wish to add to it any more than is absolutely necessary.
	I am moving to a conclusion. I believe that the National Health Service was charged with the health of those in prison in about 1999, taking over from the Prison Service. Everyone clearly recognised what an important advance that was. When I visited Feltham young offender institution about a year after that event and spoke with the health department, I particularly noticed the significant decline in children and young people harming themselves. It is widely acknowledged that that was an important step forward. So there is a reasonable expectation that if local education authorities were to take responsibility for the matter we are discussing, there might be further improvement in the consistency and quality of education provision in these settings. One per cent of children entering the juvenile estate have a statement of special educational needs, but it is estimated that 50 per cent actually have special educational needs. That is another argument for better joining up the services provided in prisons with those outside. That might well be done by placing these responsibilities on local education authorities.
	In conclusion, for all our sakes it is vital that we improve the consistency of the quality of education offered to juveniles and that we ensure they have a school place when they complete their generally short stay in custody or on remand. Both these amendments might conduce to those ends. I look forward to the Minister's response.

Lord Adonis: Clause 4 imposes an important new duty on local authorities to identify children missing from education. The various amendments seek to amend that new duty in different ways, introducing new provisions for children in custody or otherwise in detention.
	Amendment No. 23, in the name of my noble friend Lord Judd, extends the duty on local education authorities to identify children on a school roll who are not receiving a suitable education, as well as those who are missing education altogether. We completely endorse and support my noble friend's concern on this issue, but the amendment is unnecessary. Schools are already under a statutory duty to monitor attendance through the daily attendance register and can access support from the LEA education welfare service when there are attendance issues.
	Moreover—and this goes to the heart of the duties on local authorities referred to by my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland—schools are also already required by the Education (Pupil Registration Regulations) 1995 to notify local education authorities of the name and address of every registered pupil of compulsory school age who fails to attend regularly or is absent from school for a continuous period of more than 10 school days. It is then the duty of the local education authority to take appropriate action. The issue of precisely what they do must of course be kept under review and, I am sure, can be improved in some cases. Absence of duty is not the issue, however. Equally, the duty proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, in Amendment No. 24, which requires local education authorities to provide suitable education for children identified as not registered at a school and not receiving suitable education otherwise than in a school, already exists under Section 19(1) of the Education Act 1996.
	Amendments Nos. 25 and 26, which were tabled by my noble friend Lord Judd and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, concern children detained under a court order but not receiving suitable education. I endorse everything that the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Williams, said so movingly about the fateful path leading from failure to engage properly with the opportunities of school, and to socialise properly in that context, to the problems of youth offending and the huge cost to those individuals, their families and society of their developing in that way. We regard the needs of that group of extremely vulnerable children, most of whom have had a very poor experience of education, as a key priority. We also regard the needs of Traveller children, who were referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, as a key priority; I will write to the noble Earl with the figures that he was seeking.
	However, it is not the case that we have been inactive in this area. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, referred to the Youth Justice Board, which took responsibility for overseeing the youth justice system in England and Wales in 2000. Funding of prison education at large, including youth offender education, moved to my department then, and we have seen much closer working between the Home Office and my department as a result. My honourable friend Phil Hope is the Minister directly responsible for these issues, and most people in the field regard the fact that the education department has direct responsibility for educational provision and outcomes in the Prison Service as a significant improvement.
	The responsibilities of the Youth Justice Board include responsibility for the funding of education and training in the three types of secure institutions for young people aged under 18. There has been significant improvement in this regard. During the 2004-05 academic year, the average number of hours of education delivered was 24.4 within young offender institutions—a three-fold increase from only seven hours in 2002. In no small part, that is due to a quadrupling of spending on young offender education from some £5 million to £20 million between 2002 and 2005. While I would be the first to accept that there is still more to do, I believe that we have taken significant steps forward and need to keep up the pace of improvements. Further improvements carried out by the Youth Justice Board in addition to increasing the number of hours of suitable education and training include major capital investment, a national audit of need, the introduction of individualised literacy and numeracy programmes and the employment of a large number of extra learning support assistants and additional specialist expertise.
	We accept that there is more to be done. Earlier this year, we published the Green Paper Reducing Re-Offending through Skills and Employment, which pledged us to take further steps. One of them was the establishment of a joint policy team involving my department, the Home Office and the Youth Justice Board, on school-aged offender education. That team will consult relevant partners and agencies to develop proposals and I give an undertaking to the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy de Knayth, that there will be consultation with those in the sector. I am happy for that consultation to include noble Lords, and I will honour the commitment made by my noble friend Lord Filkin on that. We will produce further proposals later in the year.
	However, we do not see Amendment No. 26 as an effective way forward, although we wish to keep this matter under review as we seek to improve services for young people in custody. Amendment No. 26 would simply apply the existing duties conferred on the Secretary of State, LEAs and parents under the Education Act 1996 to anyone detained under the order of a court and we believe that it would cut across the detailed framework of duties and powers already in place, which we have enhanced, to implement and regulate the education that is provided to children detained under a court order. Simply inserting the new clause proposed here would create significant legal confusion about who is responsible for what inside the prison and secure estate and would not improve the education available to those in detention. We are taking forward a process of continued investment and reform inside the service.
	Amendment No. 25, which was tabled by my noble friend Lord Judd, raises two issues. The first is whether young people in custody are receiving a suitable education; I have already set out the steps that we have taken on that. The second is whether to place the duty of identifying children who are not registered pupils at a school and not otherwise receiving suitable education on the LEA within whose area the custodial establishment is located. One problem with that is that that local authority will seldom be the local authority to which the young person will return after he is released from his custodial sentence.
	We completely understand the issue that my noble friend raised about the immediate continuity of education after the completion of a sentence. It is precisely to meet that concern that today we have laid regulations that will require schools to keep young offenders who enter custody on the school roll for a minimum of four months. At present, a child can be removed from the roll after four weeks. The new regulations will allow removal from the school roll only where the proprietor of the school does not have reasonable grounds to believe that the pupil will return to the school at the end of the custodial sentence. These changes will apply in England from 1 September and will mean that many more young people are released from custody directly into a school place that is already theirs so that they can experience continuity of education.
	Amendment No. 26A is, the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, a probing amendment on immigration removal centres. Three immigration removal centres hold families with children, two hold families for a maximum of 72 hours and one is located in Scotland, to which this Bill does not extend except for technical purposes.
	The immigration removal centre at Yarl's Wood, to which the noble Baroness made specific reference, may, where necessary in individual cases, hold families with children for longer than 72 hours, although most will still be held for just a few days prior to removal from the UK. The figures that I have relate to the last two quarters in 2005 and show that nearly 70 per cent of the 995 children who left detention did so in seven days or fewer from immigration removal centres; a further 11 per cent left within eight to 15 days; a further 14 per cent left within 15 to 29 days; and 5 per cent left within one to two months. We know of only one or two cases where detention lasted for as long as three to four months. I think that those figures put the issue in perspective. That is not to say that we do not recognise our substantial obligations for the education of those held at Yarl's Wood.
	As part of the requirement placed on the operator, the centre provides education based on the national curriculum and tailored to the needs of individual children. Ofsted is part of the inspection team that covers Yarl's Wood. The noble Baroness referred to the recent inspection report on Yarl's Wood. This inspection report identified areas for significant improvement, and we expect those improvements to be made, but we do not believe that simply extending legal responsibilities of local education authorities would enhance the rate of those improvements. The operators must take responsibility for that issue, and we intend to see that that happens.
	I hope that I have been able to give a full response on the issues raised. Work is ongoing on the further steps that we will take to improve education for young people in custody, and we are anxious to continue engaging with noble Lords on that.

Lord Adonis: It may be helpful if I respond to that specific point. Pupil referral units are inspected by Ofsted, but I shall write to the noble Lord and copy to the House the set of measures that we have in place for tracking performance of the pupils whom he mentioned. Section 19(1) of the Education Act 1996, which I have in front of me, states:
	"Each local education authority shall make arrangements for the provision of suitable full-time or part-time education at school or otherwise than at school for those children of compulsory school age who, by reason of illness, exclusion from school or otherwise, may not for any period receive suitable education, unless such arrangements are made for them".
	I am happy to take further legal advice, but I take that reference to "suitable full-time or part-time" as meaning that, where suitable education is full time, that should be the arrangement that the local education authority makes.

Baroness Williams of Crosby: I apologise to the Minister for asking her these questions after she has spoken, although I believe that that is permissible in Committee. One reason for that is that there are aspects of the SIP proposal that I did not think that I had fully understood, so it has been extremely helpful for her to have said more about it.
	There are three things that I find profoundly worrying—and I do not pretend not to be profoundly worried about some aspects of the SIP proposal, although I can see that in some circumstances it could be helpful and useful. First, I echo the question asked by my noble friend Lady Sharp of Guildford, which I do not think the Minister completely answered, on the source. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, was kind enough to copy to me a letter that he had written to the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, on the subject, in which he confirmed what the Minister has just said—that he expected most SIPs to come from the body of serving, retired and in some cases seconded head teachers and that a few additional people might be drawn from school management teams.
	My profound worry is, as the Minister will agree, that we face an extremely serious problem about head teachers. More and more responsibility for leadership now rests on head teachers and the problem is particularly serious with primary schools, which is the group to which the Government intend to extend the requirements of the Bill in the very near future. I happened to look through the Times Educational Supplement for this week, last week and the week before and in every case there were five, six or seven pages packed with advertisements for primary school head teachers. In some cases, as the Minister is aware, there have been primary schools that have had to replace head teachers several times—the most extreme example being Dunmore school in Abingdon, which has had 13 head teachers in 10 years, many of them in the past few years.
	I raise this because everything in the Bill rests on the capacity and ability of head teachers to respond to a huge range of additional responsibilities, challenges and requirements for standards. I wonder whether weakening the pool of head teachers in this way is wise—and it is not simply me who says that. For example, the deputy assistant secretary of the children's care services in Oxfordshire responding about Dunmore said that there was a rapidly dwindling supply of well qualified and motivated people to become head teachers. That is sadly generally true.
	Secondly, I was not clear—although this may be my fault, in which case I apologise—on the position of trust schools and academies. Was the Minister implying that they would have to have a SIP but that the appointment would be made by a governing body and not a local education authority?
	Thirdly, I am troubled about what could be the quite difficult personal relationships between SIPs and the head teachers. What happens if there is a direct conflict? That is one reason why my noble friend proposed the idea that there should be only one SIP; schools might agree to federate just so one would not have personal conflicts about what the objective of the school was. All of us who have been involved in education for a long time will be very much aware that the good head very much cherishes his or her right to make the final decision in his or her judgment. Indeed, you cannot be a good head unless you have confidence in your judgment.
	I am troubled by whether SIPs, especially if they are seen to be answerable to the Secretary of State—and I repeat, "seen to be"—might be seen by heads as undermining their authority, particularly if the head has a view about how to conduct education which is not the same as the SIP. Can the Minister say something about whether that would go to a school adjudicator and how it would be handled? I ask the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, to forgive me if I am trespassing on his territory, but I know that he and I share a profound concern about what happens if there is a personal conflict or sharp disagreement on strongly held grounds between an SIP and a head teacher, and how that would be resolved.

Baroness Buscombe: I wish to speak to Amendments Nos. 28, 30, 32, 34 and 43 and to Amendment No. 33, which concerns a slightly separate point on SIPs. It is unfortunate that this group of amendments was degrouped. I am concerned not so much about the time taken in debate as about the fact that the debate becomes a little disjointed. One wonders whether to jump up or not. I hope that we might think about regrouping in some instances as we go through the amendments so that there is a more joined-up debate. I will certainly take that on board.
	This cluster of amendments would maintain the role of school improvement partners—like the noble Baroness, I shall refer to them as SIPs—but alter the direction to ensure that they would be part of a school's own management team, rather than imposed by an outside authority.
	Amendment No. 28 would change the appointments procedure, putting the appointment of a school improvement partner in the hands of the governing body. The main reason for giving appointment of SIPs to the governing body will be clear to the Committee and the Minister. I remain convinced—as I and my noble friends were at Second Reading—that the schools themselves are the experts on schools. In other words, we would take the issue much further than the Liberal Democrats would. We believe that the schools and the governing body should have this role; even though the local authorities might, in the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, know the local scene, that is not enough.
	However, the amendment would leave the funding of SIPs to the local authority. This would ensure that, while a SIP was approved by the governing body as a matter of government policy, the school would not be expected to pay for a role that, while potentially very useful, is not a teaching or welfare role.
	The Minister's words in another place seemed to support the concept that schools should have a strong voice in the appointment of school improvement partners. Jacqui Smith stated:
	"The final determination of support for a school is for the school itself ... Its choices should not be restricted to people appointed by the local authority that maintains it".—[Official Report, Commons Standing Committee E, 30/3/06; col. 173.]
	However, the regulatory impact assessment takes a slightly different line. On page 54, it states that SIPs could,
	"enable Ministers to enforce the implementation of the SIP function in accordance with their policies".
	It goes on to say that legislation is,
	"not required for the activity",
	of SIPs,
	"to take place, but to enforce it if it does not, or if it takes place in a way that does not meet Ministers' policies".
	The disparity in those statements concerns me. SIPs are just that—they are there to work with the governing body of a school to improve its status. They are not called policy commissioners, but the regulatory impact assessment description suggests that that may be the case. What is more, if they are there to ensure that government policy is followed to the nth degree, I do not see why schools should bear the burden of cost. The regulatory impact assessment states that the Government expect the whole SIP project from April 2008 to cost around £28 million, as we have heard—I assume that that does not account for inflation—but that the Department for Education and Skills expects to contribute only £21 million, subject to the outcome of the next spending review. Does that mean that schools are expected to pay an extra £7 million for what I suspect may be a form of full-time inspector? We have heard that the measure is no such thing and involves only 19 days, but we might want to pursue that matter a little further.
	It is vital to get the right people to do the job—as the Minister has said, the SIPs need to be credible—not just local authority employees instructed to keep an eye on schools, which has posed a problem in the past and would pose more problems, according to the regulatory impact assessment. I am pleased that there will be formal training for the role, but I am concerned at the extra cost of that training.
	It is interesting to note the high percentage of former and serving head teachers who have responded to advertisements to work as SIPs. I take on board very much what Members of the Committee have suggested—that head teachers, possibly more than any others, have much to contribute to that role. As I say, it is interesting to note the number of serving head teachers who have responded to such advertisements. However, I question whether a serving head teacher, who is probably crucially tied up with that important role, is able to provide an extra 17 or so days a year. I presume that those 17 days would on the whole be best served during term time. Therefore, I can see a conflict in terms of time.
	I am mindful of the fact that out of those people of working age who are qualified to teach, more are not currently teaching than are. The challenge to raise standards in education has many sides. There have been some fantastic teaching initiatives, not least the Teach First scheme. I congratulate the Government on that scheme, which we thoroughly support. But more needs to be done to encourage and sustain a steady stream of people into teaching. I worry that while the role of a SIP will provide an avenue for people who are passionate about education to play a part in its improvement, it might create a diversion from the teaching roles that we so desperately need those people to take on and retain. I have suggested the concept of secondment to the Minister in relation to the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill, and I wonder whether he would also consider secondment in this context.
	Amendments Nos. 32 and 43 extend that logic. Their effect would be that only those schools that require significant improvement or fall under special measures under Clause 54 would be compelled to have a SIP. I was surprised to see that SIPs would be compulsory for all schools, given that in the White Paper, SIPS are dealt with under a section entitled,
	"Tackling Coasting Schools and Coasting Departments".
	As my honourable friend John Hayes has mentioned in another place, while the added value measurement has its problems, it enables us to identify coasting schools. The White Paper rightly points out that,
	"the challenge is to secure continuous improvement".
	No one could argue with that. But it is not quite clear to me why it is absolutely necessary, given the costs of training and remuneration involved, not to mention the other collateral costs of SIPs, to implement them in every school.
	The amendments seek to ensure that SIPs would be an elite body for improvement and that the very best candidates would be chosen to ensure continued progress in our schools. My amendments, to ensure that only failing and coasting schools would benefit from their role, have as much to do with wise economics as with an objection to policy. We must ensure that where education is concerned, an effective, carefully thought-out route is chosen, which stands to benefit our schools the most and which makes the best of limited resources. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, mentioned that there might be a figure of £1,000 per SIP. We need to attract the very best; and the very best will command a higher income to take them away from their other role.
	I ask these questions out of genuine concern for the role of SIPs. I accept that they could prove to be a useful ingredient in the new drive to improve school standards, which is key. They could be invaluable to schools that are valiantly struggling to improve but need extra support. I pay tribute to those schools and to the head teachers, teachers and governors in them who do excellent work while making progress. I hope that the amendments will go some way to ensuring that those who need the most focused support will get it, and those who are in no need do not prove an unwilling drain on resources.
	Amendment No. 33 would ensure that school improvement partners accept the religious basis of a denominational school. It is a probing amendment that reflects concerns expressed by groups representing such schools, particularly the Catholic Education Service, that the school improvement partner might threaten the schools' distinctive character and ethos. That concern is reflected in the summer newsletter sent to school governors by the Diocese of Portsmouth department of education. A common question asked of education officers and listed in the newsletter is:
	"Is our governing body right to be concerned about the forthcoming appointment of a school improvement partner who may have little understanding of what we are trying to achieve as a Catholic school?".
	The answer given by the newsletter is:
	"In short, yes ... Ideally, School Improvement Partners should have recent leadership experience in the Catholic voluntary aided sector. At the very least they should be fully aware of the legal differences between voluntary aided schools and other maintained schools and they should be sympathetic to the Catholic ethos and understand how it can be developed and strengthened. The CES continues to discuss these issues with officials".
	That could extend to all kinds of other voluntary aided schools.
	It is very important that the development of school improvement partners does not lead voluntary aided schools to feel under threat. That is particularly important when one considers the vital role that such schools play in providing a high-quality education for many of the most vulnerable children. For example, in voluntary aided schools where 33 per cent of pupils are on free school meals, an average of all pupils shows that 47.6 per cent achieve five or more A star to C-grade GCSEs, rather than the 40.6 per cent in other schools. Overall, 23.7 per cent of pupils with free school meals at voluntary aided schools achieve five or more A star to C grades, including English and mathematics, compared to 16.3 per cent at community schools.
	Similarly, the proportion of pupils with special educational needs achieving five or more good GCSES is 10.4 per cent in voluntary aided schools. That is a commendable record. The record of voluntary aided schools is beaten in these areas only by city technology colleges. It is perhaps for that reasons that so many parents, even non-religious parents, are so keen to put their children into voluntary aided faith schools. It is important that the school improvement partner appreciates the reason for these successes, as that would place him in a far stronger position to make constructive criticisms of the school's approach. It is also important that SIPs have the confidence of parents and of the religious bodies that support faith schools. I encourage the Minister to consider our amendments as a means of achieving that. I beg to move.

Lord Lucas: I would love to know where; that would be a great help.
	Secondly, what is happening to Amendment No. 36? It does not appear to be on the groupings list. Perhaps I am just being blind. It has not been referred to. Are we covering it now or later? Some guidance would be appreciated.
	The difficulty that I have might be illustrated by imagining that the Minister and his team at the Department for Education and Skills were approached by the Treasury, who said, "We think that ministries could do with a better understanding of financial affairs, so we are going to give you a Minister who is expert in these areas, who will hang around for 20 days a year and make sure that you are up to scratch in these things". I think under those circumstances that any departmental team worth its salt would say, "No; if we need that sort of expertise we will appoint it ourselves". It matters a great deal whether the person who is advising you and helping you is regarded, in ordinary day-to-day things, as part of your team and as part of the way that the school works; although you regard them as your peer and as having a lot of independent and real expertise, and you understand at the end of the day that they have responsibilities that run outside the school.
	I can see that I am not going to win this argument, and I will wait and see how these things go, but I foresee that conflict will occur. I also think the provision misses a great opportunity, in that these people ought to be operating between LEAs. There is such a difference between the practices of LEAs.
	To come back to a matter that I mentioned on the first day in Committee, and which was raised by the noble Baroness just now, there is a lot of data out there. I have looked at that data on special educational needs in primary schools, and children with special educational needs in Windsor and Maidenhead have more or less the same value added as those without them. If you go right down the list to Slough, just a few yards away on the other side of the Thames, children with special educational needs are doing about half a key stage 3 worse than children without them. That difference is not affected in any way by the proportion of free school meals. There is no correlation there. The difference is not affected by language or race, as far as I could discover, and it is not affected by the overall level of results achieved by a local education authority. All of those figures have been run through wonderful statistical engines for me in Oxford, and I can see no correlation whatever.
	My conclusion from that is that we have here an effect that depends on the way in which a local education authority supports its schools. If you talk to some of the better LEAs, as we have, you can see just how supportive and effective they are in helping schools deal with the questions that arise regarding supporting children with special educational needs and why they might be doing so well. Well, that is fine; but if Windsor and Maidenhead has its own SIPs and Slough, across the water, has its own, the expertise in Windsor and Maidenhead will never cross into Slough. It will never find out what it could be doing better to vastly improve the average performance of nearly 20 per cent of its pupils—and it has not done so by any existing mechanism.
	If there was a system in which SIPs were subject not to LEAs but were appointed by schools, and if I were a school in Slough, the first thing that I would do would be to appoint someone who knew the Windsor and Maidenhead system, because a great deal is going on there that I should be picking up. That would never happen if SIPs were responsible to LEAs, because LEAs are so jealous of each others' performance. If they were not, that difference would not persist.
	While I am concerned at a personal level that the Government's proposals will not work, they miss a big opportunity for cross-fertilisation between local education authorities in practices that have become common at LEA level.

Baroness Buscombe: Does the Minister honestly believe that that kind of under-achievement will be sorted out in an average of five days a year?

Lord Lucas: I was going to say that I very much hope that the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, will pursue that amendment. It is terribly important that there is a safety valve. Not all local authorities behave as perfectly as they might all the time. When a school is under the cosh for half a decade at a time merely because the chairman of the local authority education committee does not like it—it is perfectly possible; who will be imposed on the London Oratory, for instance?—there must be a reasonable escape. It is certainly possible as the regulations are provided for, but it is not in the draft regulations that there should be any such power for someone to adjudicate. There may be other ways out of it, but I very much hope that we pursue it. And I very much hope that we will get some support from the Liberal Democrat Benches. We would very much like to see this. If we do not get a satisfactory reply on it, I hope that we will pursue it to a Division, if we have to.
	I was disappointed by the Minister's illustration of how the school improvement partner will be using all these figures to point out where a school could improve itself. The best schools were using these figures 10 years ago. The systems ought to be there so that it is obvious to a school that, "We have a problem with our Afro-Caribbean children between the ages of 11 and 14", or whatever it may be. I know of at least three commercially—or semi-commercially—available systems out there that will provide this information as a matter of course. Yes, the Government can help by providing some base data to feed into these things so that there is an accurate comparison between developments in the world outside. But a school ought to have a system that tells it not only that it has a problem in this area but also who can tell it how to do better with its 11 to 14 year-old Afro-Caribbean kids. The chances of it being a random SIP appointed by a local education authority are pretty small. At that stage you want to be going out to a much wider audience.
	I have always hoped that the Government would create a system that worked for spreading expertise and making it available to schools, but they never have. Beacon status has not worked and its successor has not worked particularly well. A good school will know what is wrong and where to go to put it right. I would support anything a Government did to do that, but the idea that this will be the SIP, or that the SIP should perform the function that the Minister described, I find extremely depressing.

Baroness Buscombe: I thank the Minister for her full response to the questions posed, and thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. My noble friend Lord Lucas and I are a little sceptical about local authorities working in partnership. I was pleased to hear what the Minister said about South Gloucestershire, but historically local authorities have tended to work in isolation, jealously guarding their own patch. Having been a district councillor, I know how that plays out. It is a bit like government departments with all those thick walls and glass ceilings.
	I have a great deal of sympathy for the wish of the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, to have more flexibility if there is incompatibility between the character or personality of the SIP and the school. We need to avoid a standard ration. We should focus on coasting schools when considering the role of the SIP. I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, agrees with us that the appointment of the SIP should be for the governing body.
	In relation to that, I think that I have come up with rather a good idea that I shall air now and may propose in an amendment on Report. The Minister spoke about the need for those making the appointment to be able to set themselves apart to play an external role to challenge and support, and I accept that. However, the point that the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, made is tremendously important. We need to avoid conflict, and the head of the school and its governing body must be able to work well with that critical friend. So, what if the local authority were to make the appointment but the governing body would interview for that role? That could be a way round the problem. The governing body would have a role in the appointment of the SIP, and can assess the chemistry to ensure that there is a strong chance that that relationship can work well.
	We are setting the SIP a huge task in some instances, particularly in relation to coasting schools and schools that are underperforming in a number of ways. We are asking him to give a lot of advice and counsel in an average of five days per year. That is better than nothing, but we must ensure that those five days do not just prove disruptive because they are window-dressing so that we can tick another box. If we just say that too many schools are underperforming but a SIP in every school can help them improve, I cannot see that improvement happening in practice. I urge the Minister to consider focusing SIPs, rather than putting one in every school, and paying them better to work with schools that are underperforming. We should not talk about five or 19 days; they should have real time to mentor and work with schools.
	The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, talked about mentoring for children's homes; we have mentoring in business and right across the board. Most people who are mature in the role that they play in life appreciate that there are times when a mentor can have a positive role to play and can make a real difference. There is more that we can think about in this regard. We want to help the Government to ensure that the role of the SIP is effective and can make a difference in raising the standard of education in our schools.
	I am grateful to the Minister for her response to Amendment No. 33, which was a probing amendment. I take on board what she said about working together in a spirit of partnership, and recognising the individual characteristics and ethos of schools that makes them distinctive and in large part rather successful. I thank her for agreeing to write to us in respect of funding. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Adonis: It may assist the Committee if I come in immediately after the noble Baroness to say that we agree with everything she has said, and that it is encompassed in the current clause.
	The sale of playing fields now requires explicit ministerial consent in every case. I know because I am the Minister whose desk these issues cross. The sale of playing fields has almost ceased and only a tiny number are sold each year. They are sold only if our professional advisers are satisfied that alternative arrangements for playing fields are sufficient. In almost all cases, the proceeds of the sale go into investing in sports facilities in the school, typically new sports halls or facilities of that kind.
	We have significantly boosted the role of sport and team sport, reversing the lamentable trend highlighted by the noble Baroness that has taken place in the previous 20 years. We have invested £978 million in our PE, School Sport and Club Links strategy with the target of ensuring that, within and beyond the curriculum, 75 per cent of pupils by this year and 85 per cent of pupils by next year engage in at least two hours of high-quality PE and school sport each week. We have made significant progress in that respect. The last independent survey on school sport, which covered the last academic year, showed that overall 69 per cent of pupils in partnership schools participate in at least two hours of high-quality PE and sport, which is up 11 per cent in one year. There have been improvements.
	In the amendment, the noble Baroness specifically highlights football and cricket. We agree that they are of great importance, and Clause 6 encompasses them. Our concern with the amendment is that it might unhelpfully narrow a local authority's view of what facilities it should provide if we specifically highlighted those. We consulted more than 11,000 young people in the process of drawing up our Youth Matters Green Paper, which found that they wanted more sports facilities in their area. The provision they sought included requests for activities such as swimming, hockey and netball—the last two of course are also team games. Twelve per cent wanted more youth clubs, 11 per cent wanted,
	"the opportunity to try extreme sports",
	such as waterskiing or canoeing, and 9 per cent wanted to see improved provision for dance and youth theatre.
	All those are encompassed within Clause 6. We want a significant increase in opportunities for team games, including cricket and football. Measures are in place to ensure that. Our concern about the precise wording of the amendment is that to include it in the Bill might highlight some areas at the expense of others within the duty of local authorities. We think that they should follow local consultation and ensure a balanced extra provision of suitable youth facilities in their area.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, perhaps I ought to declare an interest as I had an exceedingly good lunch at Trinity House today, but I hasten to add that it was nothing to do with this order or with the lighthouse authority. I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate, particularly the testimony of those who are very much in a position to know about the advantages which AIS will bring to safety at sea.
	The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, asked me three questions, which I will do my best to answer. Certainly, the AIS will operate in all waters where there is high risk. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord MacKenzie who identified the crossing of the Irish Sea, which needs attention in these terms. Obviously, places such as the Straits of Dover and so on will be equipped first. It is a roll-out programme. In due course we would expect to see considerable, if not universal, coverage.
	Of course, this is dependant on costs. Pilot areas are being organised and operated, but it is clear that the speed with which it will be developed will be dependent on and proportionate to the costs involved. The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, will readily recognise that the scheme will be brought into place where there is the heaviest traffic and greatest risk. The timescale is also part of that general position. As the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, and others testified, the system is already in place to a very limited extent in pilot work, but it will take time before it is fully operational. It is an ambitious system. The intention is to cover all vessels except those of 300 tonnes and below, so it is a very big operation.
	The noble Lords, Lord Glentoran and Lord Bradshaw, mentioned vessels of less than 300 tonnes. We hope and expect intelligent people operating in waters to be very keen to avail themselves of the latest technology and devices which guarantee the greatest safety. But there are costs involved for people on board ships and we cannot make this mandatory for the smallest leisure craft. Therefore, we will have to have in place the traditional aids, which will give security to vessels unable to fit AIS. Of course, the long-term intention is that all ships of more than 300 tonnes will be fitted with this system. Therefore, we will be able gradually to transform the nature of those traditional navigation aids into the more modern framework.
	It will be recognised that the lighthouse authorities have got a long and proud tradition stretching back almost 500 years. Everyone who uses the sea is grateful for their services in the past. In fact, this country is redolent with stories about those who are concerned with safety at sea who have saved lives on very many occasions. It is only right that even organisations as traditional as the lighthouse associations take the fullest advantage of modern technology. I do not think that anyone doubts that this system is a very significant development. It will aid safety at sea against a background of our waters becoming increasingly crowded. The mixture of traffic is also very extensive. We also know that British waters, particularly the Straits of Dover and the English Channel, are the busiest waterways in the world.
	We want this system to transform security situation. It cannot be done overnight, but this order represents the intention of organisations which we hold in the highest regard to pursue new technology and carry on their age-old commitment to safety at sea. I commend the order to the House.

Lord Monson: My Lords, we have certainly travelled a long way since those relaxed, carefree, politically incorrect days when the great challenge was to cram as many people as possible into a Mini Minor and drive around London, arms and legs sticking out everywhere. For 99 per cent of the time, the police did not give a damn. Rather more seriously, a few years later, in order to save both petrol and wear and tear on parents, two, three or four families—mine included—would get together and share the school run, taking it in turn to carry half a dozen or more children in the back of an estate car, albeit with arms and legs safely tucked inside. Never once did I hear of anyone coming to the slightest harm in consequence, although, no doubt on very rare occasions, it did happen.
	Nevertheless, one has to accept that the younger generation, among whom I include the thirtysomethings and fortysomethings, is more jittery—I have tried to use as neutral a word as possible—than ours was. Hence, they willingly accept restrictions on carrying children in cars that our generation would have considered neurotically over the top. Even so, the first part of the regulations is open to some criticism. First, most normal people in this country do not measure their height in centimetres, and never will, any more than they will describe to friends and family the weight of their newly arrived baby in kilograms. If a new James Bond were to appear on our screens—they seem to do so every two or three years—he would be likely to be described in the media as tanned, muscular and 6 feet 2 inches tall, not 187.96 centimetres tall.
	When I revisited India recently after a gap of many years, despite many decades of compulsory metrification, and although miles had succumbed to kilometres on road signs, I was delighted to see that in every other respect user-friendly imperial measurements—inches, feet, yards, pounds—were still used in everyday life and in business. In Bangalore, for example, hoardings advertised luxury apartments measuring 900 square feet. At least let the words "approximately 4 feet 5 inches" be used as a supplementary indicator to the 135 centimetres requirement so that parents can know what is expected of them.
	Incidentally, halfway down page 2 of the draft statutory instrument, reference is made to,
	"a maximum design speed exceeding 25 kilometres per hour".
	Legal limits in this country are still expressed in miles per hour. Curiously enough, one paragraph in the Explanatory Memorandum contains a wonderful jumble of metric and imperial, referring to,
	"street lights no more than 200 yards apart in England and Wales or 175 metres apart in Scotland"—
	politically correct Scotland. It continues:
	"These are roads for which the normal speed is 30 m.p.h.".
	Better some imperial measurement than none at all.
	More worrying is the second part of the regulations—I refer not to the measurements but the substance. Children who are 135 centimetres tall, or just over 4 feet 5 inches, will in many, if not most, cases find the diagonal strap of a seat belt running across their neck. If there is a sudden stop, not necessarily occasioned by a collision, they could be very seriously injured, possibly even killed. Have the Government taken any detailed medical advice on the possible harm that can come from a strap tightening across a child's neck?
	My main objection is to the second part of the regulations, which introduces seat belt compulsion in buses although, strangely, not in trains. My noble friend Lord Erroll has said that he will support me in this. On average, no more than three people a year are killed in buses and some of these will be in urban buses, which will not be subject to the regulations. We are talking about a possible maximum of one life saved per annum. That is assuming that most people will obey the regulations, which of course they will not; there is no way of enforcing them, especially on double-decker buses, such as the Oxford Tube, which I use from time to time.
	Moreover, more and more long-distance buses nowadays have lavatories. Will passengers now be forbidden to use those lavatories, or will the bus operating companies be compelled to remove them? This seems a typical piece of nonsense, emanating from the overpaid, paternalist control freaks in Brussels, aided and abetted by the paternalist control freaks in this country.
	As the Minister will know, every American state, every Canadian province and every Australian state can decide its own seat belt laws. Why cannot the ancient nation states of Europe be allowed to do the same? Harmonising seat belt and other road traffic laws has nothing whatever to do with completing a single market. I suppose that I will be told that it was the previous Conservative Government who sold the pass. That may well be so, in which case this Administration cannot be blamed for this particular piece of Euro-nonsense. However, I hope—doubtless in vain—that they might in due course press for greater subsidiarity in this and similar matters.

Baroness Buscombe: In moving the amendment, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 63, 69, 70, 71, 72, 76 and 89.
	These amendments, if accepted, would represent a substantial step towards achieving the new strategic role for local authorities that the Government have set out, not just in the Higher Standards, Better Schools for All White Paper, but in the Department for Education and Skills' Five-year Strategy for Children and Learners and the 2005 Labour Party manifesto. Amendment No. 55 would prevent local authorities in England establishing new community schools. This is an important amendment that goes to the heart of what the Bill sets out to achieve.
	Key to that vision was removal of the power to establish new community schools. Yet, since the White Paper was published, the Government have retreated from their bold aims, and for no clear purpose. Indeed, the ability to establish new community schools completely undermines the very basis of the new commissioning role. The Government perhaps recognised that fact when, in the regulatory impact assessment, they stated:
	"At present, some authorities have tended to regard schools as "their" schools and to regard other categories of schools as being outside the local family of schools".
	That is also implicitly acknowledged in the report of the House of Commons Education and Skills Select Committee on the White Paper. The committee summed up the goal of the Government as follows:
	"The Government is aiming for a clear division between schools as independent providers of education and local authorities as commissioners, enablers and strategic planners".
	The committee's argument, which the Government seem to have accepted, is that unless all schools are forced to become self-governing, there is no justification for a ban on the establishment of new community schools.
	Following that report, the Government retreated. Community schools could be proposed but only with the consent of the Secretary of State. As the Bill stands now, several local authorities will be given the right to establish new community schools although a similar number will be forbidden from proposing such schools. The remainder will need to seek the Secretary of State's permission.
	By removing the right to establish new community schools we would return the Bill to the vision set out in the White Paper. The Government should not fear accepting this amendment because they should realise that they will have our support. I should add that notice of my intention to oppose the question that Clause 8 stand part of the Bill is consequential on the amendment. If the Government were to accept this amendment, Clause 8 would fall.
	Amendment No. 63 tackles the issue in a less explicit way by removing the rights of local authorities to establish a new community school through a competition. Amendment No. 76 to Clause 10 would prevent local authorities establishing community schools outside competitions. I invite the Minister to accept at the very least Amendment No. 76. It will ensure that all new community school proposals would have to be decided on through a competition. I would like clarification of the grounds that the Secretary of State will use when granting consent under Clause 10. I would appreciate it if the Minister could confirm that the procedure under Clause 10 is, indeed, for use only in exceptional circumstances. Will he guarantee that local authorities that are forbidden from proposing community schools under Clauses 7 and 8 will not be granted permission to proceed under Clause 10?
	Clause 8 deals with the circumstances under which schools will be permitted to propose new community schools. The Government have helpfully provided draft regulations: the School Organisation (Community and Community Special Schools in Competitions) (England) Regulations 2006. Those set out that a local authority will be prevented from establishing new community schools where it has an APA of one or where it has an APA of one and more than 15 per cent of schools are eligible for intervention or less than 15 per cent of schools are foundation schools, voluntary schools, academies, city technology colleges or city colleges for the technology of the arts. Schools with an APA rating of four will automatically be permitted to propose new community schools. All the others will need to seek the permission of the Secretary of State.
	A consequence of the Government accepting our amendments forbidding the establishment of community schools is that Clause 8 should not stand part of the Bill. Our amendments to Clause 8 seek to place greater limitations on the circumstances under which a local authority can propose a new community school.
	Amendment No. 69 would prevent a local authority proposing a community school if such provision would result in less than one third of places in schools in the authority being provided through self-governing schools. It is very important that local authorities ensure diversity and choice by promoting the development of self-governing schools. Out of 150 local authorities, 86 local authorities have no foundation primary schools and 73 have no foundation secondary schools.
	That approach differs from that of the Government in that our amendment refers to the number of places in schools while the Government's draft regulation refers to the absolute number of schools. We would be interested in probing that a little. Why refer to the absolute number of schools when, ultimately, it is, in the words of the White Paper, increasing the number of places available at good state schools. That is the priority.
	Another point where our amendment differs from the approach of the Government is by applying the target on diversity to all local authorities, not only those with poor APA ratings. We are unconvinced that the good performance of local authorities truly justifies exception from the rule on diversity, particularly with the insignificant proportion—15 per cent of schools—which the Government believe should be schools other than community schools. Only a handful of local authorities will be affected by this provision.
	If we exclude academies and city technology colleges and concentrate solely on maintained schools, out of 3,385 maintained secondary schools in England, around 65 per cent are community schools and 35 per cent are not. There are relatively few local authorities where fewer that 15 per cent of maintained schools are not community schools. January 2005 data indicate that only six local authorities would fail to meet this target with regard to primary schools and only 21 local authorities would fail to meet this target with regard to secondary schools. If we included academies and city technology colleges and took the APA rating into account, I am sure that the numbers prevented from seeking consent from the Secretary of State would be even lower. I would be interested to know what estimates the Government have made of the number of local authorities that would not be allowed to seek the Secretary of State's consent under these regulations. I would also like to know on what basis the 15 per cent is chosen, as increasing the proportion even slightly leads to large increases in the number of local authorities that are prevented from seeking consent. A five point increase to a minimum of 20 per cent doubles the number of authorities that would not meet the diversity target, and if we increase the target to one-third of schools, 77 local authorities would have insufficiently diverse secondary schools.
	Amendment No. 70 means that local authorities would have to demonstrate that the establishment of a community school would raise standards more than the establishment of a foundation school. I feel this is very important. This is what the Bill should be about, not so much about structures, but about raising standards in our education system. It will demonstrate that the principal justification for the establishment of a new community school must be the provision of high quality education for pupils. If a local authority cannot demonstrate that a community school will raise standards more than a foundation school, I see no reason why the local authority should be allowed to go ahead. The 1997 Labour manifesto stated:
	"The judge and jury of LEA performance will be their contribution to raising standards".
	Both these amendments reflect the fact that foundation schools perform considerably better than community schools in terms of academic achievement. For example, if we consider the most recent GCSE results, at community schools 24.9 per cent of pupils received no GCSE passes at A* to C; that is, nearly a quarter of pupils. In foundation schools that figure dropped to 19.6 per cent. The proportion that received five or more good GCSEs, including English and maths, was 38 per cent in community schools; in foundations schools it was 44.2 per cent; in voluntary aided schools it was 49.1 per cent; and at city technology colleges, which are independently run and enjoy the greatest freedom among schools, only 3.6 per cent of pupils failed to pass any GCSEs at A* to C and 65.9 per cent of pupils passed five or more GCSEs. The results are here to see. Indeed, at the Thomas Telford City Technology College, which has an intake that is representative of the national ability range, 100 per cent of pupils achieved 12 or more GCSEs at grade A* to C, and that figure includes English and maths. The pattern displayed by the value-added results is identical.
	Our next amendments attempt to ensure that local authorities make a real effort to bring about the new vision of the education system. They reflect the Government's statement in response to the House of Commons Select Committee report that:
	"It is important that local authorities seriously consider all alternatives to secure the best education for their community ... and do not just promote local authority community schools as the default option".
	Amendment No. 71 states that where a local education authority wishes to propose a community school, it must simultaneously publish proposals for a foundation school. This would ensure that the adjudicator could always choose to reject a proposal for a community school in favour of a foundation school. It also reflects the commitment the Government gave in the White Paper at paragraph 9.11 that:
	"We will expect local authorities to ... make their own proposal for a self-governing (Foundation) school, if they cannot find a suitable promoter, in keeping with the commissioner role".
	This emphasises the new commissioner role of the local authority and ensures that an application to propose a new community school does not become the default option for local authorities who do not take their new role seriously. It may be possible for a local authority to use the failure to receive permission to propose a new community school as a justification for inaction and failure to promote choice and diversity. This amendment would remove that possibility, and, I believe, supports what the government are seeking to achieve.
	Amendment No. 72 also promotes the new role for the local authority by requiring local authorities to provide the adjudicator and the Secretary of State with a notice setting out their reasons for publishing proposals for the establishment of the community school and, where applicable, their reasons for not publishing proposals of their own for the establishment of a foundation school. That ensures that local authorities justify their decision to propose the establishment of a new community school if they cannot justify the choice of community school over a foundation school.
	Finally, Amendment No. 89 to Schedule 2 would give the adjudicator an explicit right to alter a proposal for a new community school into a proposal for a new foundation school. That would ensure that where the adjudicator considers the proposal for a new school, he is aware of his right to accept the proposal with modifications, and therefore is able to accept a planned school as a foundation school instead of a community school.
	This is partly a probing amendment. The adjudicator may already have these powers, and perhaps the Minister could expand on that. By explicitly including the power in the Bill, the Government could, with appropriate guidance to the adjudicator, ensure that all such proposals are examined to see whether a self-governing school might be a more appropriate solution to the needs of the area than the community school. I beg to move.

Baroness Williams of Crosby: I rise on behalf of these Benches to raise some objections to the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe. The amendment would do two things. First—and I will come back to this point—it would substantially remove the element of valid parental choice. Either we mean parental choice or we do not. If we decide to abolish the alternative option of a new community school, what we are effectively doing is determining the range of choice before a choice has even been made.
	Secondly, the amendment would remove the last barrier between the Bill and the possibility of an education Bill that would satisfy the Conservative wish to return to some form of selection. Therefore, this amendment is of the greatest significance and importance in determining the true purpose of the Bill. I, for one, look forward with very great interest to what the Minister has to say about it.
	The Conservative Party played a large and extremely constructive part in the creation of comprehensive schools. Even today, in many shire counties comprehensive schools work extremely well and have brought to a large number of children opportunities that they would not have had under a selective system. They have been issues of pride to the county councils and councils that administered and ran them, and have enabled literally thousands upon thousands of youngsters to access tertiary and higher education who never had the opportunity before.
	I believe that the comprehensive system in this country has been extremely badly served in its treatment by a very sophisticated public relations system which has given it nothing like the credit it deserves for the remarkable strides it has made and has concentrated on the failures of a very small number of schools. One of the things I remember, having been a Secretary of State, is that the proportion of failing schools in England and Wales is relatively small, probably about 200 to 300 schools, and that it is not a characteristic of one particular sort of school—the so-called community school. It is a characteristic of every single category of school. Regardless of whether we are discussing independent private schools, selective schools, secondary modern schools or comprehensive schools, there has always been an element of failure.
	One of the jobs I had when I was Secretary of State was to insist that failing private independent schools be closed. There was a proportion of failing private independent schools; there always will be. One of the wisest remarks ever made by a thinker on education—Michael Rutter, in his famous book—was that in every category there are failing schools and good schools. The key question is what makes a good school, not to assume that one category will define one school good and another bad.
	The community school is exactly what many parents would choose. We will come to later amendments concerning the centrality for my party of a fair choice being made by the parent—and, where it is appropriate in secondary schools, in consultation with the pupils. That should be the acid test of which schools should be allowed to go ahead. We do not seek to weight the choice; we would not remove a particular category of school from the list; in the last analysis, if we believe in parental choice, it must be valid and made genuine. With great respect, Amendments Nos. 77 and 55 would make that impossible.
	I said to the Minister—he took some exception to this, and I now better understand why—that I believe that the playing field in the Bill is not exactly level. He conceded that that was true of capital provision, because academies undoubtedly have some preference for capital buildings. Indeed, they have some preference for new and fine buildings. The average cost now is very high, above £20 million, well above what would be the case for a new community school.
	The Minister argued with great force that that did not apply to revenue. I should have explained earlier that when I referred to some—how can I put it?—bias in the playing field, I had in mind specialist schools rather than trust schools, where there is clearly a small but nevertheless relevant revenue element between specialist schools and community schools that are not specialised. But that was not all that I meant. I was not speaking purely about financial considerations; there are several others. The national curriculum will not apply to independent state schools, as I understand it. School pay and conditions will not be determined nationally and applied to the school, the school will have a greater degree of discretion on the matter. I am not clear whether SIPs will apply, but if they do, they will be set by the governing body and not by the local authority or, for that matter, the Secretary of State.
	In addition, the community school is uniquely saddled by having to seek the permission of the Secretary of State, with a very small number of exceptions—the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, has spelled out just how small that number will be. None of us want a poorly performing local authority to set up a new school. I hope that none of us would want to see poorly performing sponsors of an independent state school to set up a new school. We believe that the same provision should apply across the board, not to one section only. Then there is the issue of how far Ofsted inspections will apply rigorously within the independent state trust schools.
	I believe that there has been a very powerful public relations lobby against community schools and in favour of trust schools. One rather amusing example, which I find painful although amusing, appeared in the Times Educational Supplement on 6 June about "a lavish dinner" at which the heads of community schools were invited to apply for trust status by no less a figure than Sir Cyril Taylor. I cannot remember many lavish dinners being offered to heads of state schools not within the circle of those invited to move towards trust status.
	It goes far beyond that. There has been a consistent barrage of criticism of our comprehensive schools. That brings me to the second part of what I want to say. I will not go on for long; I know that there is time pressure on the Committee, so I will not repeat the speech, but I want to make this point.
	The Minister, who is a very fair-minded man, was kind enough to make available to us the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit study entitled, School Reform: a Survey of Recent International Experience. That is very fair of him and it is a very fair and objective report. The report throws very grave doubt on how far comprehensive schools have done less well than their selective alternatives. I went very carefully through that report. I also went through another report, called Education at a Glance, which covers a much wider range. It is published by the OECD and relates to the figures for 2005. It shows what I was trying to argue earlier; there are really good schools and really poor schools in each category—it does not depend on the category. Perhaps I may remark briefly on the matter.
	The OECD statistics go beyond the ones with which the Minister kindly provided me by including additional countries that are not covered by the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit. They show three things very clearly. First, among countries with selective systems, some of which go back a long way, the Netherlands does very well. It is not in the very top group, but it is very close to it, and it has had a selective system for very many years. Incidentally, it has a very diverse selective system, which includes faith schools, schools set up by parents, and many others, but it puts the emphasis on selection—it is a selective system. At the other end of the spectrum of selective systems— rather surprisingly, given what a powerful and rich country it is—is Germany, which comes out very close to the bottom on both literacy and numeracy, and comes out worst in relation to the impact of social group, occupation and income on educational achievements. Germany has been devoted for a very long time to the three-track system of Hochschule, Fachschule and Technische Schule in a way that has not changed for many years, and it is surprising that it has a very poor record, according to OECD indicators.
	Let me be equally fair. In the group that is called "strongly parent-related"—that is, where parents are free to make choices—Denmark comes out as a basically comprehensive but very poor system, largely because it gives almost total freedom to parents to choose whatever sort of school they want, from independent to comprehensive, but it does not have the sort of rigorous inspection that we have in this country.
	Finally, we come to the comprehensive group. At one end is Norway, a country with little discipline and a great belief that it was doing well. It is wrong; it is not doing very well according to the OECD indicators of mathematical and literacy achievement. At the other end is Finland, a country that does the best in Europe over the whole spectrum and that has nothing but comprehensive schools and only a tiny percentage of about 2 per cent who opt out of the system. It is simply rubbish to pretend that a system determines the standards that children achieve. That is not true. What happens and what matters is whether schools have good heads, a good vision and a good sense of commitment, and, on behalf of many thousands of teachers and many hundreds of head teachers in this country, I resent the attempt to run down the major achievements of our comprehensive schools.
	I conclude by saying that, according to the OECD indicators in this thick book, which I shall put in the Library for anyone who is willing to see it, the United Kingdom actually comes out extraordinarily well. The Minister may want to take some credit for that, although the figures date back to 2000 when 85 per cent of our children were in comprehensive schools and before the system began to fragment into academies and all the rest. That 85 per cent of children in the comprehensive system achieved seventh position out of 41 countries tested by the OECD for literacy, and roughly the same for numeracy. Among the very highest placed industrialised large countries, we were exceeded by countries such as Korea, Finland, which I have already mentioned, and one or two others, sometimes but not always including the Netherlands. However, in our ability to include all our children and our capacity to rate highly according to these demanding OECD indicators, called PISA—the programme for international student assessment—the validity of which no one has questioned, the United Kingdom has come out surprising well. Instead of taking credit for that, we run down those very parents and teachers who have achieved that. Yes, we should achieve more, but we should not understate what we have done, and, above all, we should not fall into taking part in what is in essence a political football game on the field of education.
	I hope that the Government will reject this amendment. I hope that they will go further and assure us that they are completely objective in the way in which they conduct their competitions between schools and that one school is not weighed against another. In our view that implies that—I will come to this on a later amendment—ballots will be conducted in which parents can legitimately take part, and that the Government will respect parental ability to choose and to have a preference. At least publicly, they state over and again that they believe that. If they accept this kind of weighting, that belief will not add up to anything very much in real terms. I oppose the amendment.

Baroness Walmsley: Certainly not, and my subsequent remarks will make that clear.
	The noble Baroness also spoke of the vision of the White Paper. I am afraid that the vision of the White Paper was unaccountable chaos—unaccountable to the local community. Moreover, the changes the Government were forced to concede, bit by bit, to get the Bill through another place will make their original vision much more accountable to the local community. Competition seems to be the panacea for all ills. The noble Baroness talked about maintained independent schools, and the Government refer to trust schools as maintained independent schools. So far as I am concerned, they are independent of the local authority, independent of the community, and independent of parents. Very few parents have any role at all in the governance of those schools. In that respect, they are also independent of children because they can turn them away willy-nilly if they wish. They are dependent on the state only for funding, because in pretty much everything else they can do what they like.
	The noble Baroness also said that unless a community school could demonstrate that it would raise standards, it should not be allowed to go ahead. I do not disagree with that, but I would also like to see the same criterion applied to a trust school or an academy. We have tabled an amendment on those lines to which my noble friend will speak shortly. Unless a trust school or an academy can demonstrate that it really would improve standards in the community, it should not be allowed to go ahead.
	My noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby quoted a number of pieces of research in her inspiring speech, but one piece she did not mention was the work of the Sutton Trust. Its research considers voluntary-aided and Church schools, and shows quite clearly that their intake is skewed towards the middle classes with results that correlate closely with the income of the parents. We all know that, in this respect, choice is a very good thing for parents. If parents are sufficiently interested in the education of their children that they take great care over the choice of school, they are much more likely to play a positive part in their children's education—and that will make a big difference to children's level of achievement.
	The noble Lord, Lord Young, asked whether we are doing the best possible job for our children. In some cases I agree with him that we are not.

Lord Adonis: I am very happy to do that, in which case I can reply to the noble Baroness helpfully—she said that I try to be fair minded, and I shall be as fair minded as I can—on one or two points and I hope that it will reflect her remarks.
	I agree with a good deal of what the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, said about the way in which education policy is portrayed. I find myself often at the receiving end of this. Any Minister who has to read some of the claptrap reported in the newspapers about standards in state schools, and who constantly has to reply to it, is familiar with the difficulties that we face often with our media.
	I have the highest regard for the noble Baroness, who is grappling with the issues that we are all grappling with to improve our schools, but I think there is a fundamental confusion in what she said in regard to what she called comprehensive schools and what she called community schools. With the exception of grammar schools, which these provisions do not affect at all, all the categories of schools that we are discussing today are, in her understanding of the term, comprehensive schools.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said that there were free-for-all admissions. There are no free-for-all admissions: all these categories of schools will have to act under this Bill in accordance with the code of practice on admissions. They will all have to observe the pay and conditions document for teachers, observe the national curriculum, undergo Ofsted inspections and have the SIPs we talked about earlier, whether they are trust schools or non-trust schools. I think there was a fundamental misconception at the root of the noble Baroness's remarks. We are not talking about selective systems against non-selective systems, so the comments about comparisons between the Netherlands and Germany do not apply in that sense. We are talking about a greater diversity of school management and tying it within a basically comprehensive system. Her party's proposals would limit that.
	I am giving a partial reply, so perhaps I can delay commenting on one or two points. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said that she did not want to remove any category of schools—that she wanted fairness between them. With great respect, that is not the case. Her Amendment No. 92 would prevent the establishment of trust schools because it would forbid trusts and trust bodies from effectively appointing the majority of the governors, which is one of the elements behind a trust school. A trust school, where it wishes to do so, is enabled to operate in its governance terms like a voluntary-aided school. In an addition to Clause 18, by forbidding any reduction in the statutory proportion of elected parent governors on a school governing body, Amendment No. 92 would in fact make it impossible to establish a trust school within the meaning of the Bill. So it is not the case that the Liberal Democrats favour, as it were, fair competition between them. They are seeking to eliminate a category of school which, as the figures given by the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, show, there is good evidence to think has, in some local contexts, a fair chance of providing a higher quality of education than the existing schools in their governance arrangements. I say that as the first stage of my reply; we will wait and see what the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, has to say.
	The noble Baroness talked about misconceptions. I fear that there are a lot of misconceptions about trust schools and what they are seeking to do. As they are met, I believe that we can overcome some of the prejudice that has been so evident in our debates.
	The amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, would forbid local authorities to promote new community schools. Our approach to this issue is fairly well rehearsed. We strongly support diversity, greater self-governance and the role that foundation and trust schools can play in bringing those about. However, we also recognise that there may be a case for a new community school in a particular instance; we have listened to concerns in another place and have defined the circumstances in which that might take place.
	The illustrative regulations in Clause 8, which I have made available to the Committee, set out criteria for the circumstances in which a local authority may publish proposals for a community school without the need for explicit consents; they also set out when the Secretary of State's consent would be required and when a local authority would be disqualified from publishing proposals.
	The noble Baroness asked which local authorities would not be able to put forward proposals on the basis of the criteria that we have laid down. A local authority with an APA rating of 1, which is poor, would not be able to publish proposals for a community school. That also applies to the 10 local authorities with an APA rating of 2, with fewer than 15 per cent of foundation or voluntary schools or more than 15 per cent of schools in Ofsted category 4—the category of failure. So the Secretary of State would have discretion with regard to a large number. Equally, there would be no need for explicit consent for the 11 local authorities that have an APA rating of 4, which is excellent. There would be no need for consent for 11 authorities; it would not be possible for 10 local authorities to publish proposals; and the Secretary of State would have discretion in the other cases.
	This goes to the heart of the noble Baroness's concerns. I know that she would wish us to go further regarding the requirements to promote diversity. However, the right to publish a proposal for a community school, which is what we are talking about in the clause, is very different from meaning that that new school will be a community school. The right to publish a proposal is the right of the local authority to enter a community school into an assessment and competition that will be made, into which other proposals can also be entered. In the event of a local authority publishing a proposal for a community school, the decision on which proposal should succeed is made by the independent schools adjudicator, who will weigh, on the basis of their educational merits, the quality of all the proposals. Those proposals could include a voluntary-aided school, a foundation school and a trust school, as well as a community school.
	Under Amendment No. 70, local authorities could promote a community school only where the Secretary of State was satisfied that that would lead to higher standards. That is a judgment that needs to be made; it will be made by the adjudicator, who will decide on the proposals on the basis of standards.
	Amendment No. 72 would require local authorities to set out their reasons for wanting to promote a community school rather than a foundation school. In practice, a local authority will need to do this. It will need to demonstrate to the adjudicator that the community school that it is proposing will offer an improved quality of education better than any existing or realistic alternative. In practice, the local authority will have to establish a case and, of course, the reasons. If the adjudicator is not satisfied that the local authority has made this case, the guidance that the department will issue will make it clear that the proposal should not proceed, even if there is no alternative proposal immediately before the adjudicator.
	Amendment No. 76 would prevent the Secretary of State from giving consent for a new community school outside a competition. The noble Baroness asked for my assurance that this would happen only in exceptional circumstances, and I can give that assurance. But we believe that there are exceptional circumstances. For example, a junior school and an infant school, perhaps sharing a single site, may want to amalgamate to form an all-through primary. The authority might consider in that case that a competition was not necessary—a strong case could be made for that—and apply for consent to bring forward proposals outside a competition. We do not want to disturb existing successful arrangements. That would be quite inappropriate in a Bill that is seeking to promote higher educational standards. We can conceive that there will be exceptional circumstances where it would be appropriate for the power to be used and for there not to be a requirement for competition for changes that are not brought about by reason of failure or because completely new places are required.
	Amendment No. 89 to Schedule 2 would place a duty on the adjudicator, in deciding proposals for a new community school, to consider whether it would be desirable to alter the proposals to make the new school a foundation school. The noble Baroness said that it was a probing amendment. We do not think that it is a practical proposition. If promoters were interested in developing a foundation or trust school to meet the needs of the area, they would at the point at which the adjudicator was making the decision already have had the opportunity to bring forward their own proposals in response to the notice inviting proposals for the new school.
	Equally, however, if the community school proposal is not judged by the adjudicator to be satisfactory, the adjudicator can turn it down, as I have described, and other proposals could be entered in a new competition if a decision was taken to proceed with one. We believe that that is the best and most practical procedure, not least because the adjudicator would be in no position to know whether partners might wish to promote a foundation or trust school if he deemed a community school proposal to be unsatisfactory. When he was making that decision, he would have only the one proposal in front of him. I believe that the position that we have reached is satisfactory.
	The big point that I would make to the noble Baroness is the need to distinguish between the proposals being promoted for community schools. Where local authorities have a good track record in standards and diversity, we believe that their taking such a course of action is appropriate. I will be quite frank; we have been persuaded of that course by the debate in another place and by the representations made by my right honourable and honourable friends in another place. A strong argument can be made for competition in that respect. If there is to be fairness in competition, local authorities with a good track record should be able on the same basis as other promoters to promote their proposals. However, that is distinct from the process of deciding between alternative proposals, which would in that case be done by the independent schools adjudicator whose only mission under this Bill is the promotion of the highest educational standards.
	I end where I began: all the categories of schools that we have been discussing are comprehensive schools. The fact that one is called a community school, a trust school, a foundation school or a voluntary-aided school does not affect that. We are not seeking to change the comprehensive admissions philosophy, which we believe is right for this country, but we want to enable greater diversity in the management, ethos and character of schools within comprehensive bounds, all focused on the enlargement opportunities and the best possible results for pupils.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, said that no single international model works. As one who has spent quite a lot of time looking at international models, I agree with that. There is no off-the-shelf model.

Baroness Buscombe: I thank the Minister for his response. I have written lots of notes in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and the noble Lord, Lord Gould, but much of what I wanted to say has been said for me by the Minister.
	I did not expect a great response to my Amendment No. 55. However, I think that it was worth flying a kite, not least to make the point that we are here trying to support the Government to achieve what we and clearly the Government believe is right—which is, as the Minister has just said, to increase diversity and the management ethos and to focus on improving standards in our schools for all our children's future.
	With all due respect to the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, I feel that her speech was somewhat predictable. I resent the notion that somehow because I for my part and from these Benches am doing all that I can to help to raise standards in these schools, I and others are somehow running down all that these comprehensive schools have achieved. I went to one myself. All that I will say is that I think that, without streaming, I personally would have sunk without trace.
	There is no question but that much has been achieved, but we need to do more. The results that I quoted earlier from some of the schools that have been allowed to flourish speak for themselves. As the noble Lord, Lord Gould, said, this is not about selection. It is a shame in some ways that the Government have felt the need to move away from the White Paper, but of course I understand that that was necessary to get the Bill through in another place and maybe it is necessary to get the Bill through in your Lordships' House. I do not want to do anything to prevent the Bill from getting through in your Lordships' House, because I believe that it is a step in the right direction.
	I keep remembering the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, at Second Reading, who said that this is an interim measure. It is actually a step in the right direction. It is not saying that what has been happening hitherto is wrong; it is saying, "Let us be bold and brave and courageous and try to make it better still for our children's future". We all want our children to have better than we had; it is a parent's right to feel that way—and all of us who are parents feel that way. This is not a political football. At Second Reading, I said that if we could only take politics out of education we would all be a lot better off and this country would be better off—but that is probably never going to happen.
	The Government are making a step in the right direction. I have listened with care to what the Minister said about a number of the amendments that we have proposed this evening and I accept his reply. I obviously want to read in Hansard with care the detail of his response to some of my questions about competition and proposals for community schools. But for now I am pleased to feel that we are for the most part trying to achieve the same thing. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: In moving Amendment No. 56, I shall speak to the other amendments in the group. It might be useful if simultaneously I dealt with Clause 8 stand part, which is logically linked to this series of amendments. I pick up where the last debate left off, because this series of amendments seeks to do precisely the opposite to the series proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe. From our point of view, rather than prohibiting the establishment of new community schools, these amendments seek to establish what we regard as a level playing field between community schools and others and to leave it open to a local education authority to propose a new community school where that seems sensible and a feasible way forward.
	In proposing these amendments, I think that all of us are very concerned about providing the best education possible for the children of this country.
	In our debate last week the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, mentioned a fact that I find an indictment of our current education system: 20 per cent of children leave primary school unable properly to read or write. We all know that, once they have left primary school without functional literacy or numeracy, their chances of surviving in secondary school are very small. They are the ones who also have difficulties in the secondary school environment. We also know that that group of children disproportionately comes from disadvantaged homes, and many of them have special educational needs of one sort or another.
	One feature of the Finnish system that has not been mentioned is that they assess children, as we do, when they enter school, though not through formal tests—in fact, they have very few formal tests until they are 18. Where they find that children have special education needs, they concentrate resources to try and counter those children's disadvantages and make sure that by the age of 10 or 11 they are as close to their contemporaries' level as they can be. They know that if they do not succeed at that point, it will be very difficult for those children to make their way further on. It is a question of pouring in extra resources.
	I congratulate the Government on their Sure Start initiatives, which are moving in the right direction. However, the Minister knows that I do not think we have put the necessary resources into the primary sector, particularly the early stages. The failure of the Government to follow through on the Steer report and get parent and pupil support workers into primary schools is a great mistake. A concentration of support at that stage is sorely needed, for pupils and for parents, and would replicate what is there in the Finnish system. It could help to remove this incredible black mark on our system.
	I shall talk about my amendments. In response to criticisms in the other place, as we know, the Government conceded the case for community schools to be established in certain circumstances. We shall be looking at those circumstances in more detail a little later on. We have two amendments that deal with this, Amendment No. 68 and the Question whether Clause 8 should stand part. For the record, however, from the point of view of those no these Benches the conditions written into Clause 8 are so circumscribed that they remove all discretion from local authorities.
	We do not oppose the idea of competition for new schools, and we are happy to see local education authorities required to compete with other proposals, including those coming forward from parent groups. We are unhappy, however, at the degree to which the balance under the proposals put forward by the Government is tipped against community schools and in favour of other providers, and the degree to which the trust school proposals move away from local accountability.
	Many of these amendments deal with Clause 7, which is about proposals to establish new schools, and the subsequent clauses, dealing with how those proposals under Clause 7 are to be published, considered and carried forward. It might be helpful if I quickly run through these amendments. Amendment No. 56 takes out from Clause 7(1) the prohibition on LEAs making proposals for new schools. Amendments Nos. 57 and 62 add community schools to the list of schools falling into subsections (2)(a) and (5)(b)(i).
	Amendment No. 57A asks that the knock-on effects of expanded sixth form provision on other schools and colleges in the area be considered. We shall look at that issue when we discuss alterations to schools.
	Amendment No. 64 would take out Clause 7(5)(b)(ii), which refers to Clause 8. Amendment No. 68 would add a new clause, to which I shall speak in a moment. Amendments Nos. 74 and 78 would make it clear that the local education authority may proceed to publish its proposals in its own right without having to seek permission from the Secretary of State. Amendment No. 91 applies to alterations to schools under Clause 18 and makes it clear that, should a foundation school wish to reverse the process and become a community school, it can do so, whereas under the Bill it is prohibited from doing so.
	In some respects these clauses about new schools may seem rather irrelevant because over the next five years we face of drop of half a million in the number of secondary school pupils in this country. The issue is likely to be—as it has been with primary schools over the past few years—one of closing schools, not opening new ones. But this, and the final amendment in the group to Clause 18 and alterations to schools, raises the whole question of the link between this Bill and the programme of building schools for the future. How far do the Government intend to use that programme of rebuilding to force schools down the foundation trust route? Will an LEA seeking to replace an existing community school with a new building be told that unless it is prepared to make the school into a foundation school, it will get no new building?

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: I am glad to hear that the answer is no.
	I wish to elaborate on Amendment No. 68. The proposed new clause defines the grounds on which the Secretary of State can withhold consent to a proposal from a local education authority to establish a community school—it would replace Clause 8—namely, the Secretary of State has to believe that a community school would not improve the quality of education of pupils in the area.
	The White Paper had proposed that all new schools would in future be academies, foundation schools or trust schools, and that there would be no new community schools. As we know, this has proved to be highly controversial. The case for local authorities retaining their powers to propose new community schools was well made by the authors of the alternative White Paper, the Members of the Select Committee and many others. In response, the Government have accepted that there may be occasions where a community school may be the best option to meet local needs. Therefore, the Bill now proposes that local authorities will be able to propose a community school, provided that the Secretary of State gives consent. Proposals will be decided by the adjudicator, as the Minister made clear.
	In Committee in another place, the Minister said:
	"The regulations will allow local authorities with an annual performance assessment of 4—the highest score—to enter a community school into a competition automatically, without the need for the Secretary of State's consent. We should trust those high-performing local authorities to decide what type of school would best serve the needs of their communities. Currently, there are 11 local authorities with an APA of 4 ... three groups of local authorities will not be permitted to propose a community school: local authorities with an APA of 1, which are those with the poorest performance in children's services; local authorities with an APA of 2 and in which less than 15 per cent of schools are foundation or voluntary schools; and local authorities with an APA of 2 and more than 15 per cent of schools in Ofsted category 4—in other words, badly-performing authorities that either have a large proportion of schools that are failing or have low levels of diversity".—[Official Report, Commons, Standing Committee E, 20/4/06; col. 317.]
	"Diversity" here means 15 per cent of foundation and voluntary schools. The remaining 130 local authorities—there are 11 in category 4—will be able to enter the competition with the Secretary of State's consent. That means that only 11 local authorities are currently able to enter a competition for community schools without the Secretary of State's veto. This is demeaning, limiting and limited. The new clause that we are proposing provides that the Secretary of State should only withhold his consent to the publication of proposals if he is satisfied that the proposals would not lead to an improvement in the quality of education for the pupils concerned.
	It is for those reasons that we question whether Clause 8 should stand part, and we wish to substitute for it our Amendment No. 68. I beg to move.

The Earl of Listowel: I rise briefly to follow up on the discussion by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, of different models of education provision. The Minister will recall from our debates on childcare provision my particular concern that the emphasis on moving swiftly to what is now a majority private provision has not necessarily benefited children in terms of staff stability, training and support. I say this as a challenge to the model that the Minister is following. It was not surprising, when he responded to the noble Baroness, that he said that the Finnish model was very interesting but that we should also look at the best models in this country. When we look around the world, we see that increasingly education systems are becoming more diverse in the models of provision that they provide.
	The Finnish model is particularly interesting because it is a comprehensive model. Its real emphasis and investment has been first on teachers, in terms of very long and developed teacher training. Another interesting and distinctive aspect is that children do not start their education until the age of seven, and therefore the opportunity for relating with their families is much more important there. Pre-school does not start until the age of six. In the first years of schooling they have shorter school days, so again they have more opportunity to be with their families.
	I am putting this forward to challenge what seems to be the prevailing presumption that our model of provision of education is the one that we should be pursuing. It may be the right one; but from my experience of being involved in caring for vulnerable children, what is most striking is the appalling consequences of not having properly trained staff working with children. The most important thing, which the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, made clear on Second Reading, is the need to keep a single-minded focus on supporting and developing those professionals working directly with children and young people, and not to be distracted from that.
	I feel moved to say that because to my mind we overlook that in this country. We are a culture that puts particular emphasis on generalism, on being flexible and on taking on a number of different roles. That is an important model for us. The idea of specialism, of a deeply well-educated and focused professionalism, is also very important. For children and particularly for vulnerable children, we need to think much more deeply. I say that in the light of a letter that I received recently from the Minister, saying that children in children's homes are cared for by staff only 23 per cent of whom have any relevant qualification. Get the education and training of our teachers and support right—I know that it has been improving significantly—and you will be going an awfully long way to delivering improved education for our children.

Baroness Williams of Crosby: I very much agree with the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. It is certainly the case that one of the distinguishing features of the Finnish system is that it requires all its teachers to have a postgraduate degree. That seems to be a crucial factor in the quality of the education in that country. I pay tribute to the Government for some of the steps that they have taken in that direction, not least in the training of head teachers and senior management staff, but, as a country, we must press much further with in-service training of teachers to ensure that they keep up with the many demands made on them.
	I rise to say a few words about Amendment No. 57A regarding sixth forms. It is a probing amendment. My noble friend Lady Sharp of Guildford pointed out that we are confronting a decade of dramatic decline in school rolls. We all know that one of the things that makes a sixth form viable is an adequate number of pupils to maintain a range of choices for young people who are going on to take A-levels, NVQs or whatever the higher qualification may be. If the size of a sixth form falls below a certain point, it simply becomes uneconomic to offer a range of alternative courses, and the sixth form then constricts rather than broadens a youngster's education.
	I make no bones about my worry that if a range of trust schools, in particular, academies, are created in a local authority area—most of them will expect and want to have a sixth form because it is part of the traditional prestige of a secondary school which many people involved very much prize, although the Minister may say that that is not true—that may bite into existing sixth-form provision, which will make it difficult for those secondary school sixth forms to be viable.
	I have in mind the more disadvantaged local authorities that have set up sixth-form colleges or, in some cases, tertiary colleges to try to meet the needs of their brightest, most ambitious and aspiring youngsters who want to go on to try to get A-levels and other advanced qualifications. I am frightened that in certain circumstances those sixth-form colleges could be undermined. The Minister will know well that they have a good record in secondary education of achieving outstanding results in parts of the country such as Devon, where it is difficult to sustain a sixth-form among a lot of small towns and villages. There have been notable results in those sixth-form colleges.
	I shall not press the Minister now—he may wish to answer the point on a later group of amendments—but the issue has been neglected in our discussions thus far. It is extremely important that every last boy and girl who wants it can get sixth-form or tertiary college provision and I am troubled by the difficulty already experienced by some authorities, where the sixth forms are only just viable, as to what might happen if a number of new ones open.

Lord Young of Norwood Green: I wish to respond to a couple of points. It is almost as if some kind of Scandinavian Utopia exists. We should be comparing like with like. Would that the UK was identical to Finland—I do not know whether I really do want it to be identical to Finland. But if it was, we would have to accept a slightly smaller population—about 5.2 million—and a country that was ethnically homogenous. That is hardly the case in the UK, where income inequality is one of the lowest in the OECD. I do not agree that Finland is a country that we could aspire to and match, due to the factors that I have just mentioned,.
	I agree that the international report mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, is interesting. I have not looked at the OECD report, but I will do so. The international report states that following the reforms of 1998,
	"Finns are now free to choose which school their children are educated in"
	and that many parents in urban areas now exercise choice. That is a really interesting scenario. The report also states:
	"Choice is now exercised by many parents in heavily urbanised areas of Finland—for example in Helsinki in 2002, approximately 50 per cent of children entering secondary schools at ages 12 and 13 requested a school other than the one they were allocated to".
	Not all the people who value choice are in the highest socio-economic groups. That is interesting. Even in Sweden, another much vaunted and justifiable example, there is no firm evidence of the impact of reforms, but a decade after the reforms, Sweden has one of the least ability-segregated school systems in the OECD. In areas where children have been encouraged by their local authority to choose and have been given support and information to help them to choose, the least well off appear to take advantage of the choices. So often we hear it said that parents do not want choice, but I believe that is invalid.

Lord Young of Norwood Green: Perception is everything. When I listen to the noble Baroness, I cannot help feeling that she worries about choice. I agree we should not denigrate community schools or comprehensive schools. Many of them have achieved startling successes, but neither should we go in the opposite direction and suggest that somehow trust or foundation schools will be totally untrammelled and free of any accountability. I have heard it alleged tonight that they will not be subject to the national curriculum—that is not true. They will be subject to Ofsted inspections.
	We are trying to find a balanced approach. Are choice and diversity wanted by parents? I believe that they are, not just in the UK system, but also elsewhere in the world. Has that choice the capacity to benefit children? Again, I believe it has. It is not the only answer, as the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, rightly says. We are in a dynamic situation, not a static one, as I believe the Government have recognised. We are being invited to go from one end of the spectrum to the other. On the one hand, we are being invited to suggest that no community schools are allowed to take part in a competition and, on the other hand, it is suggested that practically all of them are. Where should we be?—between a rock and a hard place, between the Buscombe and the Walmsley positions, if I can caricature it in that way. I believe that the Government have got it right when they say that a proportion of the higher or better performing schools should be able to propose a community school for competition. It is a balance and a compromise.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: It seems to me that it is pejorative for the noble Lord to speak of the higher performing schools, as though by definition community schools are low performing schools and voluntary-aided schools are not. I know there is some evidence—the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, cited some evidence—to indicate that there is a higher performance in voluntary-aided schools, but when one looks at the Sutton Trust research one sees that that is very closely linked to income.

Lord Young of Norwood Green: Perish the thought that I should be pejorative. I should have said "local authorities" rather than schools. I am not attempting to be pejorative at all. The Government had to make an assessment. We know that some local authorities are failing authorities. We have to be honest. We know there are significant numbers of children who are failed in our current system. That does not mean that I believe, or anyone else believes, that the vast majority fit that description. We are trying to find a way forward which we believe will raise standards in all schools. I think that the Government have got it right with their compromise. The Liberal Democrats believe that they have not, that this goes too far and that there is too much diversity and choice. There is a judgment to be made. I hope that the amendments will be withdrawn.

Baroness Buscombe: I feel the need to rise briefly in response to the noble Lord, Lord Young, to say that I hope he will come further in the Buscombe direction than the Walmsley direction, given that Buscombe has been quoting from the Labour manifestos for 1992 and 1997, the 2005 White Paper and ad infinitum. I feel that I am almost seeking to do the noble Lord's job for him.
	This may sound very controversial, but it has been nagging at me that there is a feeling that if one is going for anything other than a community school, one is somehow leaving the community and that the local authority body that sets schools up and manages them is somehow intrinsically linked with a local authority and therefore with the community. As a punter, I never felt any connection with my local authority until I became a representative of it. I hope I am making myself clear here. Most people who live in towns, villages or cities feel a real sense of connection not with their local authority but with the place that they live in and the community as a whole. To somehow feel that if one moves away from management by the local government structure one is leaving the community is fictitious and completely wrong.

Lord Adonis: I have spent my political life in what Roy Jenkins called the radical centre, and never have I felt more in the radical part of it and the central part of it than in the debates we have been having on the education Bill. It is my great regret that I should be parting company with the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, who was in the radical centre, but on this issue has moved to the less radical zone. I think she would still see it as the centre, but is less prepared to contemplate change.
	My noble friend Lord Young made an excellent speech and the case for change is compelling. If we take a hard-headed, realistic approach to our educational performance in the past 20 years, three things stand out. First, there has been remarkable progress in that time. When the GCSE was introduced in 1988, only one-quarter of 16 year-olds were getting five good GCSE passes. It is now 55 per cent. That is the scale of the progress we have made as a society over that period, and it is very welcome. But 55 per cent is 55 per cent and becomes 45 per cent if English and maths are included. They are the core skills that teenagers require if they are going to be likely to succeed in employment thereafter and to avoid the scenarios that we were discussing earlier in our debate. But while we have made great progress, we cannot be complacent.
	In looking that the international evidence to which the noble Baroness referred, three things become clear: our average performance as a country has risen substantially in the past 15 years, and that is to be applauded; our top 25 per cent are as good as the top 25 per cent in terms of performance anywhere in the world and we have a fantastic top end in the state and private systems; and the gap between our highest and lowest performers as large groups—not just the extremes—is much higher than in the rest of the OECD and is still at proportions that cause concern. That is why these reforms and the preparedness to consider them are important. We have higher average achievement and very high top-end achievement, but we still have a very long tail of low achievement which is unacceptable, as are the disparities in performance. We have higher performance, but there is still much to do.
	The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, put his finger on the third key priority, and I come back to it time and again, as we are spending so much time discussing structures and legal reforms in the Bill: we will achieve nothing without steady investment in our teachers, our head teachers and our support staff. As I said on Second Reading, the Government are making huge additional investments in those areas—in qualifications, salary levels and staff numbers. That investment is going into schools and resulting in more and better teachers irrespective of category of school.
	In response to the noble Baroness, I re-emphasise that we are talking about trust schools, community schools, voluntary-aided schools and foundation schools where the investment in people and facilities is equal and the pay and conditions apply equally across the different categories of schools, as does the curriculum and inspection.
	Putting all that together, I say to noble Lords on the Liberal Democrat Benches that we come back to their Amendment No. 92. They accuse us of not having a level playing field. However, I believe that the proposals we have set out provide a good range of opportunities and rule out local authorities from promoting community schools only where their own performance is of a level where I think any reasonable-minded person would think that they are not suitable to promote schools.
	One category of new school that we are talking about is the trust school, which is basically the application of the tried, tested and largely successful voluntary-aided model outside the faith sector. The Liberal Democrats' Amendment No. 92 would forbid that model being established in the state system. So there is not a level playing field as far as our colleagues on the Liberal Democrat Benches are concerned.
	Liberal Democrat Members also make the confusion—which I think the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, put her finger on—that a community school, in its engagement with the community, is to be judged only by the degree to which a local authority controls the school, the number of governors it appoints to the school and the degree to which governors on the governing body are elected by parents. Although we think it important that parent governors play a role in the school, use of the criterion alone is a fundamental misconception of what necessarily makes a good school or a school that is absolutely committed to community cohesion and engagement in the community.
	I do not want to rehearse everything I said in response to the previous group of amendments. Perhaps I can briefly address the issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, of sixth-form provision. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, was absolutely right to say that the demographics mean that there will be a smaller secondary population over the next 10 years. However—and this is a key point in understanding trends in post-16 provision—on the basis of a rising performance in schools, particularly in schools where it is rising faster than the trend, it is an absolutely realistic expectation that the number of post-16 students will continue to increase and will probably do so substantially.
	Because we have historically had such a poor record in participation beyond the age of 16, it is perfectly reasonable to believe that that will increase over the next 10 years. Indeed I think that we would be defeatist if we did not work on the assumption that we will have a declining secondary population overall, but with a rising population of pupils staying on at school and in college beyond the age of 16. It is the lowest performing schools that have the lowest rates of post-16 participation, and they tend to be schools without sixth forms—or, to think of it in more modern terms, post-16 provision. Because post-16 provision will increasingly be collaborative; it will not be the free-standing sixth form trying to offer the whole range of qualifications and courses but a post-16 provision which may well be shared with other schools or the local college.
	I believe that it is absolutely right that we should be seeking to promote more post-16 provision in schools, much of it on a collaborative basis, provided that it is linked to realistic assumptions about increases in the post-16s staying on rate on the basis of school improvement and the rising proportions gaining qualifications. That is a realistic scenario to which we should be working.
	The noble Baroness referred to the excellent sixth-form colleges—and I pay tribute to them. The sixth-form and tertiary college sector has been one of the most successful parts of our education system over the past 20 years. The sixth-form college sector is bursting at the seams it has been so successful. Colleges that were built for 1,000 to 1,500 students are in some cases now catering for well over 2,000 students. One outstanding sixth-form college I visited recently in Winchester has substantially more students even than that. The idea that colleges of that kind, which are now supremely successful, cannot co-exist and, indeed, add significant value to the work of schools in developing collaborative provision is wrong. We need to have a sensible scenario that puts a value on collaboration.

Baroness Williams of Crosby: I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way for a moment. I fully agree with everything that he has said, but I am concerned that there are still some parts of the country where the staying-on rate is well below the national average. I agree that it may well improve but if there are 500,000 pupils coming out of the secondary system, while coincidentally in some parts of the country there has been a low staying-on rate that is only slowly beginning to improve, there is a danger that the first-rate sixth form or tertiary college may find it difficult to continue expanding in the way that he was talking about.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: I take issue with the Minister about Amendment No. 92 which, as far as we are concerned, merely requires that there should be a larger proportion of elected parent-governors on trust school bodies. We find it very odd that the trust school model diminishes the role of elected parent-governors. I cannot see that that would prevent a foundation being set up. But we will come to that in due course; we are certainly not going to withdraw that amendment now. However, as for Amendment No. 56, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.